Nagysuty Cave

Nagysuty Cave is one of the caves located in the Buda Hills within the Danube–Ipoly National Park. Of the 17 caves on Remete Hill, Nagysuty Cave is the longest.

Description

On the outskirts of Remeteszőlős, at the top of Remete Hill, west of the elevation point marked 413 m, about 400 m away, not far from the elevation point marked 423 m, in a forest, in a specially protected area, at an altitude of about 420 m above sea level, Nagysuty Cave has a natural, irregularly shaped, vertically oriented entrance 1 m wide and 1 m high. The cave opens from a collapse caused by a karst spring, a roughly 10 m diameter and 6 m deep spherical chamber. About 70 m from the entrance of Nagysuty Cave, at DNy, is the entrance of the Dwarf‑Zsomboly.

Nagysuty Cave formed in Upper Triassic Dachstein limestone. Along a lithoclase, small tectonic movements and dissolution by the karst spring created the cavity system. Near the entrance, signs of freeze‑induced rock disintegration can be observed. Along well‑developed rock fractures, large spherical chambers 3–4 m in diameter were formed. Spherical dome ruins and poorly developed finger‑like stalactite clusters can be seen on the cave walls. The unsealed, easily accessible cave can be visited without permission with basic caving equipment.

The cave also appears in literature under the names Erdőföldi Cave (Kordos 1984), Máriaremetei [Öcsi] Cave (Kordos 1984), Nagysutty Cave (Egri, Borzsák 2004), Nagysutty collapse (Palkovics 1984), Öcsi Cave (Kovács, Kovács 1976) and Rácskai quarry No. 2 cave (Kordos 1984). The name Öcsi Cave was given because of László Szabó’s nickname. László Szabó was the leader of the Budapest Sports Association Caving Research Group and his nickname was Öcsi.

Research History

The Budapest Sports Association Caving Research Group planned in 1974 to continue work on the Remete Hill plateau, in the collapse opened near the elevation point marked 423 m. In 1976 the group worked on the exploration of the cave located on the Máriaremete plateau and on preparing the continuation of the exploration. 764 hours, 14 occasions and on average 10 people. Their primary task was to open a new entrance and make the cave safely accessible. For this they removed about 24 m³ of debris from the collapse to the surface and cleared an area of approximately 1 × 8 m² and 1 × 14 m². The shaft construction required back‑filling behind the shaft and multiple passages of about 15 m³ of debris. The shaft was completed on 14 November 1976. In 1976 the group produced the draft plan map and the length‑section map of Öcsi Cave. On the map sheet, the east direction is marked for use with the plan map draft. The location of the length‑section within the cave can be seen on the plan map draft. Group members measured the cave with a oil compass to prepare the map drafts.

The 1976 MKBT Report describes the cave in detail. (The publication includes two map sketches of the cave drawn in 1976.) The measurement of the cave's spherical chambers is ongoing. The cave is primarily of karst origin, but it also functioned as a water sink. The spherical chambers are heavily filled with stone blocks fallen from side walls and the ceiling, as well as debris that entered during its operation as a water sink. At several points in the cave there are blind shafts that lead toward the surface and are 1–1.5 m long. At the bottom of these shafts, as well as on the walls, there are small inflow depressions. The inflow depressions are usually 1 m wide, 0.5 m deep and 30–40 cm high. They contain cemented with milk of lime, pebble‑sized debris. These probably remained in the inflow depressions after the sinking of an older, originally much higher debris level, showing the original height of the debris level.

On the eastern side of the karst descent, which is the side wall of the intact spherical dome, there is a narrow, probably surface‑water‑derived incision, i.e., a karst trench, with a steep wall covered with rose‑drop stones. Its western part is a very fragmented vertical wall. A remnant of a roughly one‑metre‑diameter spherical chamber can be seen one metre below the upper edge of the wall. Various coloured, unevenly thick clay deposits are present on the rock sloping toward the side of the descent. In the clay deposits broken drop stones were found, ranging in size from 2–3 cm to 10 cm, with diameters from 1 cm to 2–2.5 cm. The fracture surface of the drop stones clearly shows the ring‑like structure characteristic of pendant drop stones.

The majority of the first chamber after the entrance is snow‑white from the mountain side. In several places the wall is covered with stalactite curtains and stalactite lace. The entrance wall of the chamber consists of a boulder‑sized fragment of debris and a stone block about two metres long and one metre high. During a collapse the path of the other debris was probably blocked by this stone block. The Snail House is the next room. On the ceiling and the eastern wall, molluscs prepared from slate, mainly snail shells, gave the name. Most of the ancient artifacts consist of the species Trachynerita and the species Neriferia. The determination was made by János Szabó, assistant worker of the Hungarian Natural History Museum Paleontology Collection. The dome’s south‑west side rises like a snail shell and ends in a roughly 1 m diameter spherical bulge, which also gives the room its name. Light clay‑yellow is the colour of the walls. A chamber without formations, spacious, dry.