Lóczy Cave
En.: Among the numerous cultural,
historical and natural monuments of Balatonfüred, the Lóczy Cave,
situated at the edge of the town, has a distinguished position.
Named after the world-famous researcher of Lake Balaton, Lajos
Lóczy sr., the nearly 150 m long and 20 m deep cave is renowned for
its special morphology.
Strictly protected since 1982, this natural monument is situated at
the foot of Tamás Hill, in Arács district, on the border between
the inhabited area and the karst scrub woodland. A marked trail
leads there from the centre of Füred, and roadsigns also facilitate
access. The famous cave can be approached on foot or by car,
turning right at the end of Öreghegyi street, and across the small
parking lot.
The discovery of the cave is a merit of quarrying. The western
slope of the hill had been quarried for centuries for the
easy-to-carve limestone, excellent for building purposes. In late
October 1882, workers in the quarry noticed a newly opened cleft
among the rocks: having descended, they found themselves in a shaft
that widened downwards. At the bottom, about 20 m deep, they saw
passages branching out in several directions, where the walls of
chambers were richly decorated with dripstone rosettes, i.e. cave
corals. The cave soon sank into oblivion, and was only visited by
local children for “treasurehunting”. It was probably
them, who broke off the formations covering the walls. At the
request of worried parents, the dangerous opening was plugged in
the mid-1910s.
The development of the cave only started two
decades later, despite the fact that the journalist Gusztáv Mangold
wrote two official letters to the Institute of Geology, requesting
help to explore this neglected natural monument. Finally, in summer
1930, the entrance shaft was reopened under the leadership of the
geologist Ottokár Kadic. Parallel with surveying the gerenal
outline of the passages, he also conducted scientific research, and
proposed touristic development of the cave. In 1933, a local
carpenter, named Gábor Kéry, using external funding but eventually
spending also his own possessions, opened a new lateral entrance
shaft to the chambers. The next year, again supported by the
Institute of Geology, the rock debris was carried out through this
passage, the floor was levelled and steps were made. A third
entrance, more suitable for visitors, was created by explosions,
and the earlier entrances were plugged. Even a new, passable road
was built from the town in 1935. Despite all this work, a few years
later the cave became completely neglected again; its door had
disappeared and its entrance was covered with debris.
In 1951, the municipal council decided to
restore and re-open the cave. The work took two years to
accomplish, but visitors could afterwards enjoy electric lighting
in the cave now managed by the Veszprém County Tourism Board. The
cracked and slightly dislodged rock layers of the ceiling were
already problematic at that time and were re-inforced by artched
steelbuttresses in 1976. As the entrance section had become
dangerous, the Bureau for Nature Conservation had it renovated in
the 1980s, and took over management officially in 1989. To replace
the not quite aesthetic steel buttresses, the ceiling was
stabilised by roof timbering in 1992, and lighting was also
modernised a year later. Established in 1997, the Balaton Uplands
National Park Directorate set up an information board illustrated
with a map next to the entrance and tidied up the
surroundings.
Details of the evolution of the cave are still
partly unclear, even though several researchers have studied this
question since the 1930s. The embedding füredi limestone,
consisting of spectacular rockbeds and layers of clay set between
them, was formed approximately 230 million years ago, in the
pelagic seafloor of the tropical Tethys Sea. Much later, tectonic
movements tilted the horizontal rock layers. In some places, the
mighty forces bent the layers in an arc, a nice example of which
can be seen along Lejtos (Sloping) corridor.
During the late Tertiary, or in a drier period during the ice ages,
thermal water rich in carbon dioxide gushed forth from the depths
through the fissures of the cracked rock. Mixing with cold surface
water, it began to dissolve smaller spherical hollows in the
limestone, which later grew into spherical niches and finally into
chambers. The dissolving effect could not “destroy” the
chert nodules, so they clearly stand out from the rock surface. The
upsurging karst water formed upward shafts, and cave coral
precipitated on the walls of chambers filled with hot water. As the
area rose tectonically, water descended: at present, it reaches
surface in the form of cold acid water in several springs around
the cardiological hospital. Since the cave turned dry,
ferric-manganic solutions have seeped in from the surface and
coated it with a black film of precipitation. Remnants of this film
can still be found in some smallercrevices, although most of the
speleothem was removed during touristic development.
Having got gradually nearer the surface as the slope of Tamás Hill
eroded, the cave only holds traces of a thin dripstone
encrustation, i.e. white limestone precipitation on the wall. The
rockbeds that make up the ceiling of chambers have partly collapsed
due to the hoop tension caused by the lack of support from below.
According to the explorers' accounts, this debris filled some of
the chambers. Mixing karst water still works quietly in the depths,
as indicated by the carbon dioxide released from dissolution to the
bottom of Lejtos corridor.
Opening time:
May 1 - September 30. : every day 10.00 a.m. to
6.00 p.m.
Duration of the tour : about 30 minutes
Tour group size: max. 25 persons
Information: Tel. : +36 87/555-291
In order to log this earthcache you must do
the following:
1. Take a picture of yourself at the entrance of the cave
with your GPS and post it with your log !
2. How many degrees is the temperature in the cave in
summer?
3. How deep is the cave
Email to us the last two answers, please do not post them with your
log.
Logs without picture will be deleted !!
Have Fun!
