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Caves of the Börzsöny Mountains

The Börzsöny Mountains is a medium height mountain region,which is basically volcanic in origin. It lies between the Danube, the Ipoly River and the Nogádi Basin and covers an area of 600 km ² .   The mountain range is mainly made up of the denudated residualof a stratovolcanic blanket. In the middle section a collapsed calderacan be proved. The edge of the mountains form an undulating upland, includingfew sedimentary formations.

In the volcanic rocks of the Börzsöny Mountains 110 natural, non-karstic, caves are known. Furthermore, one small cave occurs in Miocenelimestone and four artificial cavities, referred to as caves, are listed.Commonly occuring andesite agglomerate is most suitable for cave development.Eighty-eight caves can be found in this formation. The compact andesitecovers a smaller area where 9 caves are to be found. Six caves have beenformed in andesite tuff and conglomerate. Artificial cavities have beendeepened in rhyodacite, pyroxeneandesite and anesite agglomerate.

Three caves have a syngenetic origin. These are scientifically themost interesting caves of the region. The andesite cavity of Rózsabánya in Nagybörzsöny was found during mining operations in 1955 at a depth of 922 m. It is a cavity in a dyke, which was formed by the stretching effect of high pressure and hot solutions. Its walls were decorated by large individual crystals. Unfortunately these decorations have long since been destroyed.

The "Kámori-rókalyuk" was formed by the stretching and dissolving effect of ascending hot solutions in the semi-plastic lava rock. It is a 11.5 m long tube forming a horizontal cavity. The only 2 m long fumarole tube, Jókofág Cave, has a similar origin.

Most of the caves in the Börzsöny Mountainsare postgenetic. They were formed in andesite agglomerate by tectonic movement ("Alsó-Rab-lyuk", "Jancsi-hegyi Cave"), either by collapses along the bedding planes (Pléska Fissure Cave, Itató-vízesési Rock Shelter) or by the lateral erosion of a creek (Rakottyás-patak Cave, Pogány-völgyi Rock Shelter). Most common are pseudocaves, formed amongst the large boulders ( Holló-k õi Lámpás Cave, or the Kalapos Rock Shelter).

Many of the caves have been artificially widened in order to facilitatehuman utilization, for example the Remete Caves at Nagymaros, " Haramia-lyuk"and  "Hugó-villa" and the 650 m long Medve Cave (Medvediajaskyòa) in Slovakia.

The caves of the Börzsöny Mountains are generally small.Their average length is about 4 m. Only the following 4 caves are longer than 10 m:

Four fifths of the caves occur in the northern area of the mountains,only a fifth of them are in the southern area. Most of the caves can befound in the regions of Kemence (32 caves) and Peröcsény (23caves). The total length of the non-karstic caves in the Börzsöny mountains is 1223 m.