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Non-karstic Caves of the Mecsek Mountains

Mecsek is an isolated massif, 600 km2 in the south-eastern part of the Trans-Danubien Mountains. Primary folded, it was later dissected along fault lines and finally scaled down to medium relief. The geomorphology is very different because of the selected denudation of the various sedimentary and volcanic rocks.

About half of the rock formations are Triassic and Jurassic limestones.In the limestone about 100 karst caves are known. The other half of thegeological constituents are the non-karstic rocks such as sandstone, conglomerate,marl, loess and the volcanic rocks such as andesite, phonolite and trachydoleritefrom various geological ages. In the sedimentary rocks 31 natural non-karsticcaves have been discovered, but in the volcanic rocks no caves were found.

Ten caves were explored in the Permian sandstone of  Mount Jakab. Fifteen caves can be found in different places where Miocene sandstones (Abaliget, Kishajmás) occur. Three caves are known in the Mioceneclayey marl. One cave was developed in loess and one in calc-tufa.

Remete Cave at Mount Jakab and Horhosparti Caves were formed by tectonic movement. Kiskõhegyi Caves in Abaliget or "Tatár-lyukak" in Kishajmás are the result of rock fragmentation. "Kantavári-sziklaüreg"and "Rakonyigai-nagy-kõfülke" are considered to be erosion caves. Tettyei Calc-Tufa Cave shows syngenetic cavity development during tufa deposition and the cave was artificially widened.

Furthermore 8 artificial cavities arelisted.

The following caves are longer than10 m in the Mecsek Mountains:

1.

Tettyei Calc-tuff Cave

Calc-tufa

Pécs

218

/+2 m

2.

"Kantavári-sziklaüreg"

Sandstone

Pécs

appr. 34

 

3.

"Kárászi-zsomboly"

Loess

Kárász

 

/-11,5 m

4

Marci Cave

Sandstone

Kõvágószõlõs

12,2

/3,5 m

5..

Remete Cave

Sandstone

Kõvágószõlõs

10,6

/+2,2 m

 

Most of the non-karstic caves are aroundKõvágószõlõs (9 caves), nearKishajmás (9 caves) and Abaliget (8 caves). The total lengthof the non-karstic caves is 386 m, and the length of the listed artificialcavities is 152 m.

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