MAYA ARAPIT CAVE THE MOST SCANDENT CAVE IN ALBANIA

The most long-lasting and systematic are the Bulgarian explorations of Albanian karst and caves. It starts in 1991 and continued up to date. During this period 26 Bulgarian speleological expedition were held in Albania and 272 new caves were discovered and surveyed. Seventeen of them are deeper than 100 m. The most important vertical caves are: BB-30 (-610 m); Shpella Cilicokave (-505 m) and B33 (-205 m). The most important cave is the scandent cave Shpella e Majes te Arapit . General data of Albanian Alps The Albanian Alps are a part of the DinaricMountains. They are largest Mt in Albania, which covers an area of 2020 sq.km . The climate is humid with annual precipitation of 2000-2800 mm concentrated during the period October-May. The annual average temperature is 10.2 C. The Alps is built of folded and fissured Mesozoic and Paleogene limestone with max. elevation of 2694 m. a.s.l. at peak Ezerca. Dislocations with dominant directions NE -SW and NW-SE divide the Mt. in a lot of single fault blocks. The mean coefficient of efficient infiltration is about 0.6 - 0.7. The aquifer is drained by many karst springs mostly of which situated at the foot of mountain. The largest of them is Syni i Sheganit near Shkodras Lake with max. capacity 6.9 m 3/sec. in May and min. 0.300 m3/sec. in August . This vast area constitutes a typical karst region in Europe due to its geographical position, its climatic and geological conditions. Geology The Maja Arapit Cave is situated in the Albanian Alps zone, composed mainly of carbonate and carbonate-terrigenous sequences. The cave is located at the easternmost part of the Malesia e Madhe sub zone, (Kelmendi Microblok), close to its tectonic boundary with the Valbona one. The cave system is developed in over than 1500 m thick succession of different types of limestone biomicritic, oolitic, biosparitic, algae, oncolitic, fossiliferous, reef-like etc, covering the time span from Middle Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous. The limestone sequence represents (and reflects) different events, specific for each epoch, but all along the time in carbonate platform palaeo-environment.

Fig. The Geological Map of the area of Maya Arapit Cave

The effect of synsedimentary karstification processes can be observed, but the prolonged carbonate sedimentation fixed it to some levels, e.g. the sort time lasting hiatuses, prevented the cave system development. The combination of strike-slip and normal fault tectonics provides opportunities for different ways of cave system development, which sounds optimistic.

Fig.2. The context of location of Maya Arapit Cave The history of exploration of the Maya Arapit Cave The first exploration of the cave takes place during the 1970-es and is made by the Albanian cavers from Shkodra - G. Urui, Q. Gjilbegu and al. The first map is made by A. Zhalov, V. Mustakov and Gezim Urui, during the first BulgarianAlbanian expedition in 1992. At that time are surveyed 512 m of cave passages. During the next joint expedition in 1994, are further explored 127 m of new passages. In the sump (length 70 m; depth 3.5 m), situated at the right cave branch dived K. Petkov, but being alone, he could not continue the further exploration. In 2005 a new Bulgarian expedition, led by A. Zhalov, makes an unsuccessful attempt to pump out the water from the sump in order to make it passable for cavers without using diving equipment. The next Bulgarian expedition was carried out in 2006. At that time O. Kolov passed the sump and climbed up + 22 m from the level of the sump. Two new expeditions took place in 2007. The cavers worked behind the sump and enlarged the narrow passages in the right branch of the cave. Some terrain observations were also carried out in order to explore the area of the summit of Maya Arapit. At 2100 m a. s. l. the cavers found approx. 50 vertical caves. The deepest one is 152 and continued Encouraged by the results of the first expedition of 2007, a new one was organized in September. In 2008 the team 16 Bulgarian cavers continued the exploration of the cave. The mapped length of the cave is 1.224 m and its actual depth grow + 232 m. The cave continued in two directions. In 2009 two expeditions was held. The first one was international and gathered cavers from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, France, Hungary and Romania under the patronage of European Federation of Speleology. During the expedition was surveyed 1313 . of new passages. Over 0,5 km of old passage was remmaped. The actual length of the cave Maja Arapit grow from 1224 m to 2537 m. The depth becomes 243 m where the highest point is + 217 and the lowest one is - 26 . The exploration of the cave was expended with the second expedition which was organized by the SC Sofia- Sofia. Under the leadership of Zheliazko Mechkov worked also cavers from SC "Iskar", Sherni Vruh and Helictit " from Sofia and" Salamander "-Stara Zagora in total 14 persons. Using alpine and cavers methods and team climb up the virgin vertical galleries of the cave in total 65 m. The final point that has reached is + 279 meters up form the entrance. After the second expedition the depth of the cave become 308 m. The new expedition carried out from 15 July to 15 August 2010. During this period 31 th speleologists from 13 Bulgarian clubs and two Ukrainian cavers worked to continue the cave exploration. As a result of united efforts was discovered and mapped new vertical passages.The total climb it various parts of the newly discovered passages was 215 meters .

Only in the new found branch of the cave there were climbed up 146 m. The new displacement of the cave is 346 (+320, -26 m) and it continued scandent it two main directions. Brief information for the results of the expedition held in 2011 The last expedition was also International and was held from 20 July to 20 August 2011, with fieldwork 26 days. It was attended by 34 people from 6 countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraina. The artificial climbing in the 3 of all 4 vertical branches of the cave give totally 106 m of new passages with total displacement of + 75 meters from the level reached last year. The total displacement of the cave increased by + 19 m. At present the depth of the cave is 365 m (+339 m, -26 m) and length of 2643 meters. The exploration will continued next year! The value of work done is even more to the low air temperature in the cave 3-5 C and its high humidity (nearly 100%). In order to facilitate research within the cave, it was built underground base camp where speleologists stayed (in shifts) in a few days, within which "attacked" and mapping newly discovered wells. Up to date Maya Arapin Cave Arapit ranks among the biggest climbing upward in the world caves. The studies will continue because the cave is still going up and its depth didt cover the theoretical and hydrogeological potentials of the massive which is not less than 1000 m.

Fig.3 The 3-D map of the cave after the expedition in 2011