TITLE:
Speleological Investigation of the Largest Limestone Massif in Georgia (Caucasus)
AUTHORS:
Lasha Asanidze, Zaza Lezhava, Nino Chikhradze
KEYWORDS:
Karst, Cave, Limestone Massif, Pool Speleothems, Georgia
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Geology,
Vol.7 No.10,
October
26,
2017
ABSTRACT: Georgia is home to multiple, widespread limestone massifs with well-developed karst areas and their associated landscape features found throughout the country. Due to geological, geomorphological, and speleological characteristics of the limestone massifs in Georgia, there are developments in classical karst processes and landforms, which contain very impressive karst features, such as dolines, caves, calcite depositions and others. For example, in Georgia, the world’s deepest caves are found, such as: Krubera-2197 m; Sarma-1830 m; Pantyukhina-1508; Ilyukhina-1275 m; Kuibyshev-1110 m, and others. Of these, Krubera Cave is currently the deepest in the world. The goal of this work is to present speleological investigation of Muradi Cave, which is developed in Racha limestone massif. Muradi Cave is unique as the fact that it contains almost all types and subtypes of speleothems and sediments recorded nowadays in the caves of the Caucasus region, and the mineral aggregates found in Muradi Cave are rare for the caves of the Caucasus region. Unlike many of the hypogene caves in the region, Murdai Cave is formed from a more traditional mechanism of speleogenesis, but the influence of tectonic activity and complex hydrologic regimes led to the development of speleothems and passage morphology less common in the region and likely from hypogenic overprinting. The primary objectives of this study of Muradi Cave included undertaking important investigation in this country, to better understand the speleogenetic processes.