Március Cave

The March Cave is one of the caves located in the Gerecse Mountains in the Danube–Ipoly National Park, within the Gerecse Landscape Protection Area.

Description

At the southern edge of the Gerecse, in the outskirts of Tatabánya, next to the entrance of the Polish Gorge situated on the eastern‑northeastern part of the Kő Hill plateau, about 15 m east of it there is a very steep, axial, 1 m wide, broken, fissure‑like and irregularly shaped entrance, hidden by a small depression of 2 m diameter. It opens in a forest on flat terrain, in an insignificant karst depression.

It formed in Upper Triassic thick‑bedded Dachstein limestone along a tectonic fissure by percolating water, freeze‑thaw disintegration and dissolution at the terminal part. Near the entrance small corrosion dissolution traces and fingertip‑size pits can be observed. The completely broken cave, essentially a single chamber broken in its middle, has at its deepest point blurred, undeveloped dissolution forms that may indicate the same genetics as the nearby Polish Cave. The cave, equipped with basic facilities and freely viewable, is easily accessible.

In 1991 the cave was first called March Cave in its literature.

Research History

According to the report of the Tatabánya Cave Research Association concerning the year 1991, the association documented the cavity in 1991. The March Cave was formed along a fault after the development of the Polish Gorge. It is a broken cavity at the bottom of a small rock‑filled depression about 10 m from the Polish Gorge. Based on its genetic features it appears to be a feeder of the Polish Gorge. Its passages formed by collapse should be further deepened due to the need to bypass the debris of the Polish Gorge. In 1990 a club group led by Zoltán Ferenczi broke through a small depression located 70 m from the Polish Cave.

The water sink point is in Upper Triassic Dachstein limestone, formed on the lithoclase that created the Polish Gorge. The funnel-shaped water sink is periodically active and its water probably disappears in the passages below the Polish Gorge. The cavity is 4 m deep and 6 m long. The passage leads between huge collapse blocks, stalactite is present only in a few places and therefore the cave's name is debatable. Small exploratory work was carried out at the water sink point in the 1970s. Photographic documentation and map documentation were completed. Attached to the manuscript are two longitudinal section maps of the cave, drawn in 1991 at a scale of 1:100 by Zsolt Polacsek. For the preparation of the maps the cave was surveyed by László Szegedi and Zsolt Polacsek. Based on polygon length it is 6 m long and 5 m deep.

The study published in the 1994 Limes by Kinga Székely states that the March Cave with cadastral number 4630/59 does not appear in the Bertalan Károly cave library. The Cave Science Institute has no cadastral master sheet, photograph or literary master sheet for the cave, but it has a research master sheet and a map.

During the cave visits on 28 January 2001, 23 June 2001, 23 June 2002, 29 December 2002, 23 February 2003, 25 May 2003, 29 June 2004, 22 December 2004, 22 January 2006, 30 June 2006, 24 September 2006 and 23 December 2006 the Gerecse Cave Research and Nature Protection Association determined that there are no bats in it.

According to the 2007 yearbook of the Gerecse Cave Exploration and Nature Protection Association, the airflow conditions in the Summer Cave are opposite to those observed in the Polish Cave – Polish Gorge – March Cave system. The March Cave, known since the early 1980s, opens from under a steep-walled sinkhole located about 50 m east of the Polish Cave and about 20 m from the Polish Gorge. During the exploratory work in the early 1980s it was cleared to a depth of about 5 m, but the large amount of debris prevented further investigation.

In the spring of 2007 the Gerecse Cave Exploration and Nature Protection Association began exploratory work in the cave. It removed the large stone blocks that narrowed the entrance and expanded the chamber beneath the entrance in full profile. The excavated material was carried to the surface. According to the end‑of‑year survey, the cave is 25 m long and 18 m deep. Its air, like that of the Polish Cave and the Polish Gorge, contains very high carbon‑dioxide levels in summer and autumn, so exploration had to be halted from mid‑May to mid‑November. No bats were observed in the cave.

On July 13, 2009, during the professional field trip of the Hungarian Karst and Cave Research Society, the participants visited several promising objects in the research area of the Gerecse Cave and Nature Protection Association. After viewing the Lengyel Gorge, they went to the March Cave and then to the Lengyel Cave. During the cave explorations on January 31, 2009, May 31, 2009, August 30, 2009, October 31, 2009, December 30, 2009, January 30, 2010, June 26, 2010, August 29, 2010, November 30, 2010, January 30, 2011, April 29, 2011, July 30, 2011 and October 29, 2011 the association determined that there were no bats inside. On March 28, 2009, in the spacious shaft section under the entrance, a startled, flying, unidentified species of bat was present.

During the cave explorations on March 29, 2012, June 30, 2012, September 29, 2012, December 29, 2012, January 26, 2013, March 3, 2013, March 31, 2013, April 30, 2013, June 29, 2013, August 3, 2013, September 29, 2013, October 27, 2013, December 2, 2013, February 9, 2014, March 8, 2014 and July 1, 2014 the association determined that there were no bats inside. On December 26, 2014 a small long-eared bat was observed in the cave. In 2015 Zsolt Polacsek did not conduct research in the cave.