Imperial explorers find Slovenia’s longest caves

The longest cave in Slovenia has been discovered by students and postdocs from Imperial during their summer caving expedition.

The longest cave in Slovenia has been discovered by students and postdocs from Imperial during their summer caving expedition.

“Imagine looking back at your footprints in the sand of a cave floor and knowing those are the first footprints to ever disturb that sand, you are the first people to ever reach that place.” That, Aeronautics student Clare Tan explains, was one of the most exciting moments in her exploration of the caving system under the Slovenian mountain of Tolminski Migovec.

• Listen to an interview with three of the team members.

Members of the Imperial College Caving Club have been working with enthusiasts from Caving Section of the Tolmin Alpine Club, exploring two caving systems, Migovec and Vrtnarija, since 1994. In that time over 80 students from Imperial have been involved, delving further in to the winding dark passages with each expedition.

The breakthrough on this year’s trip was the discovery of passages connecting the two systems and proving they are in fact part of one colossal cave system which at 24.9 km long and 975m deep, has displaced Postojna Cave as the country’s longest.  The team’s activities captured the attention of the Slovenian media, with pieces appearing on RTV Slovenij, Slovenia’s national public broadcasting station and in Delo, the largest national daily newspaper.

The team plan to return to the caves to trek down more unvisited passages and explore potential research opportunities, looking at what rock samples from deep in the caves can tell us about climate change, as well as how rain is channelled down through the mountain caves to be the area’s chief water source.

The expedition was supported by Imperial College Union and the Ghar Parau Foundation.