1000+1 CAVES at “LEFKA ORI” MASSIF, ON CRETE, GREECE

Ανεβάζω εδώ την εργασία για τα σπήλαια στα Λευκά Όρη όπως παρουσιάστηκε στο Διεθνές Συνέδριο της UIS στο Brno της Τσεχίας το 2013. Αφορμή για την ανάρτηση είναι η πρόσφατη παρουσίαση στο κανάλι του ΠΡΩΤΕΑ στο facebook - μέσω streaming όπως έλαβε χώρα την Τρίτη του Πάσχα (21/4/2020)

Μπορείτε να δείτε το βίντεο από την παρουσίαση στο κανάλι του Πρωτέα στο youtube 

To paper μπορείτε να το κατεβασετε από εδώ

Ακολουθεί η αγγλική περίληψη:

Crete, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean sea has been subject to numerous speleological, archaeological and geological expeditions over the years. Nearly 50% of the  island is covered by limestones in the form of high rocky mountains.  Lefka Ori massif is located to the west side, in Hania district and it is the second highest on Crete (Pahnes, 2454m) and the largest by surface. The massif has a unique shape which is formulated by its 54 peaks - counting only those higher than 2000m altitude) and holds some of the deepest caves in Greece including the deepest and the second deepest (both deeper than -1000m).  Expedition reports from local or international teams targeting this amazing mountain are dating back in the early seventies and have revealed some unique caves and big shafts e.g. the well know Mavro Skiadi (shaft, -342m), Drakolaki cave (+175m), (Katavothra tou) Tzani (-280m), Gorgothakas (-1208m), Lion cave (-1110m) and others. The majority of these reports - especially those published before the year 2003- are having limited information on the exact geographical location of the caves explored and/or located. With the world "exact" the author means coordinates of entrance recorded with a GPS (Global Positioning System) device which can be then re-used by other GPS or GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software. This fact (lack of entrance coordinates) influenced  a new era of speleological projects in the area initiated by SELAS speleological club of Athens (in 2003) and a number of local and foreign contributors (clubs or individuals).  Thanks to excellent cooperation developed between  local and international teams (the contributors), 1119 cave entrance coordinates have been recorded and consolidated in one single database. The effort lasted 9 years so far and the author apart from taking part in many of the above field trips, has been also the person collecting and consolidating the datasets from the teams involved. If we take into account the known work of other teams that concern datasets which are due to be shared with the author, the number of validated cave entrances in the massif are (today) more than 1400. The geocoded information provides new perspectives and opportunities in better understanding and exploiting speleological GIS datasets of the Lefka Ori massif. The subject of this paper is mainly presenting this dataset, the contributors and the effort and method used and makes a first attempt in exploiting this dataset. Announcing the outcome of this project to the global speleological community is also interesting as a benchmark and to share best (or worst) practices with other similar works carried out around the world.