Sátorkőpuszta Cave

The Sátorkőpuszta Cave is one of Hungary's specially protected caves. It is located in the Pilis Mountains within the Danube–Ipoly National Park, in Esztergom-Kertváros, on Nagy-Strázsa Hill. The cave, opening at an altitude of 253 metres, according to some sources 273 metres above sea level, was opened to the public in the decades following the Second World War, and its scientific study also began then.

Description

The 354 m long Sátorkőpuszta Cave – because of its formations – is regarded as a model (prototype) of thermal karstification, i.e., warm water cave formation. After its “official” discovery in 1946, many previously disputed questions regarding the origin and development of thermal caves were settled, yet scientists still have to find answers to a good number of questions, and this is not an easy task. According to researchers, the cave’s formation can be traced back to the third century, when the faulted mountain structure that created the present‑day appearance of the highlands was formed. This faulted structure allowed thermal waters to flow in, ultimately resulting in the cave’s creation. Based on modern investigations, it appears that the theory that the thermal waters forming the Sátorkőpuszta Cave are products of volcanic post‑activity can be dismissed. There is no evidence for this, and the enormous time spans (10–15 million years) also make this type of explanation doubtful.

The cave cavity is formed in a Triassic rock, about 225 million years old sedimentary Dachstein limestone. In this rock, warm water, mostly sulfuric solutions, flowing along tectonic cracks performed significant dissolution work and decorated the cavity with very special formations. Calcite, aragonite (CaCO3) and gypsum crystals (CaSO4) in various – typically membrane, bark, needle and column – forms cover the cave walls from floor to ceiling. The almost regular spherical chambers, the dome chambers, may appear as the result of artificial interventions. Their formation has more recently been attributed to the condensation dissolution of water vapor.

The cave formations were largely created in the warm water‑filled passages over several hundred thousand years. When American Professor Arthur Palmer visited in 2001, he also interpreted the effect of vapor condensation cavity formation as significant. In that year, Australian Armstrong Osborne also dealt with the study of the Sátorkőpuszta dome formations, and he measured the more significant formations individually. The largest chamber is located on the middle level of the cave, its diameter is four metres. The air temperature in the lower sections, under natural conditions, is constantly 13.1 °C, while in the upper, entrance zone it is season‑dependent. In the cave the relative humidity is 95‑98 %.

The cave also occurs in literature under the names Esztergom Őrhegyi Crystal Cave (Kordos 1984), Esztergom‑Őrhegyi Crystal Cave (Bertalan 1976), Sátorkő Cave (Szegő 1948), Sátorkői Cave (Szegő 1948), Sátorkőpuszta Cave (Kordos 1977), Sátorkő‑puszta Cave (Takácsné, Eszterhás, Juhász, Kraus 1989), Sátorkő‑pusztai‑cave (Kordos 1977), Sátorkőpusztai cave (Bertalan 1976), Strázsahegyi‑lower cave (Bertalan 1976) and Strázsahegyi lower cave (Kordos 1984).

Visiting the cave

The Sátorkőpuszta cave has been open to visitors since 1993, now the only cave in Komárom‑Esztergom County that is accessible to the general public. Its caretaker and operator is the Benedek Endre Cave Research and Nature Conservation Association (BEBTE), founded in 1989. Among the organization’s objectives, besides carrying out landscape protection tasks, is to make the cave presentable to all interested parties. The cave can be visited from March to November once a month at the times and under the conditions published on the association’s website. Visits require prior registration.

Flora and Fauna

The cave serves as a permanent and seasonal habitat for several organisms. Among the cave‑loving (troglophil) species, the small long‑eared bat also retreats here, its population estimated at twenty. In 2004 the round‑winged long‑eared bat also appeared. The forest mouse also frequently visits the cave. In the summer of 2003 cave explorers were surprised when they found a specimen hibernating at a depth of 40 m, hidden in the clay debris. In the upper section of the cave numerous insects, including mosquitoes, flies and spiders, settle.

Research History

Stone miners working under the control of the German army discovered a crack opened by explosions in the rock wall in 1944, but at that time it was fortunately not given any particular significance. Its discoverers, Dorog’s Várhidi Károly and Várhidi Rezső, and their companions entered the extensive cavity network later identified as a cave two years later.

The first official field survey in the Sátorkőpuszta Cave was conducted on behalf of the Hungarian State Institute of Geology by László Jakucs, István Venkovits and Matild Nickl; by then the youths from Dorog had already explored most of the cave. Thanks to László Jakucs and István Venkovits, a map of the cave was completed in 1946, and it thus became a nationally registered cave. According to the survey data of that time, the cave was 286 m long and 46 m deep. By the traditional cave‑mapping method, only tangled lines could represent the passages; László Jakucs illustrated them in 1946 with a spatially reduced gypsum model.