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Scărișoara Cave (, hu, Aranyosfői-jégbarlang), is one of the biggest
ice cave An ice cave is any type of natural cave (most commonly lava tubes or limestone caves) that contains significant amounts of perennial (year-round) ice. At least a portion of the cave must have a temperature below 0 °C (32 °F) all ...
s in the
Apuseni Mountains The Apuseni Mountains ( ro, Munții Apuseni, hu, Erdélyi-középhegység) is a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Western Romanian Carpathians, also called ''Occidentali'' in Romanian. Their name translates from Ro ...
of
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
, in a part of Carpathian chain. It is considered a show cave and one of the natural wonders of Romania. It has also been described as a
glacier cave A glacier cave is a cave formed within the ice of a glacier. Glacier caves are often called ice caves, but the latter term is properly used to describe bedrock caves that contain year-round ice. Overview Most glacier caves are started by wat ...
.Scarisoara Ice Cave – the biggest underground glacier in Romania
Travel Guide Romania website, December 24, 2014, retrieved 17 January 2016.


History

First mentioned in 1863 by the Austrian geographer Arnold Schmidl, who made some observations and the first map of the cave,Steve Kokker, Cathryn Kemp (2004).
''Romania & Moldova''
Lonely Planet Publications, p. 232. it was later explored by the Romanian scientist and
speleologist Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form ( speleogenesis) and change over time (speleomorphology) ...
Emil Racoviță Emil Gheorghe Racoviță (; 15 November 1868 – 19 November 1947) was a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist, and Antarctic explorer. Together with Grigore Antipa, he was one of the most noted promoters of natural sciences in Rom ...
between 1921 and 1923, who mentioned it and its origin in his 1927 work ''Speologia'' (Speleology). The ice cave was formed 3,500 years ago, during the glaciations, when these mountains were covered by snow and ice. The exact date when the cave was first discovered by humans is unknown.


Description

The cave is located at an altitude of approximately above sea level. It is deep and long. The entrance shaft, which is in diameter and in depth, gives access through metal stairs to a large chamber, the Great Hall, which is approximately long and wide. The Great Hall includes an ice cliff nearly tall, which overlooks a pool called the Pool of Ice. From the Great Hall, passages lead into several other named rooms: the Church, which features over 100 ice stalagmites, the Great Reservation, Coman Gallery to the left, and Little Reservation to the right. The ice within the cave has an estimated volume of and in some places can be as thick as . The temperature is up to +1 °C in the summer and down to -7 °C in the winter. In the part for tourists the average temperature is around 0 °C.
Bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...
s live in the ice cave, as do small bugs (2–3 mm long) called ''Pholeuon prozerpinae glaciale''. In the ''Big Reservation'' a Rupicapra skeleton was discovered.


Access

The portion of the cave open to tourists includes the entrance shaft, The Big Hall and The Church. Access to the other chambers is reserved for scientific research by the agreement of the Speological Institute of Cluj-Napoca.


See also

*
List of caves This is a list of caves of the world that have articles or that are properly cited. They are sorted by continent and then country. Caves which are in overseas territories on a different continent than the home country are sorted by the territory' ...
*
Apuseni Natural Park The Apuseni Natural Park ( ro, Parcul Natural Apuseni) is a protected area ( natural park category V IUCN) situated in Romania, in the administrative territory of counties Alba, Bihor and Cluj. Location The Natural Park is located in western ...
*
Seven Natural Wonders of Romania The Seven Natural Wonders of Romania ( ro, Cele Şapte Minuni Naturale ale României) are the seven natural wonders of Romania, which were chosen in the Seven Natural Wonders of Romania contest held in July, 2008. It was the second stage of the Se ...


References


External links


Scarisoara Cave
- Romanian Monasteries.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Scarisoara Cave Caves of Romania Geography of Bihor County Geography of Transylvania Ice caves Show caves Western Romanian Carpathians Tourist attractions in Romania Tourist attractions in Bihor County