Melissani Cave ( el, Μελισσάνη) or Melissani Lake, also Melisani is a cave located on the island of Kefalonia, northwest of

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

, about Southeast of

Agia Effimia Agia Effimia ( el, Αγία Ευφημία) is a village on the east coast of the island of Kefalonia (also spelled Cephalonia) in Greece. It was the seat of the former Pylaros municipality. It is a traditional fishing village A fishing villag ...

, Northeast of

Argostoli Argostoli ( el, Αργοστόλι, Katharevousa: Ἀργοστόλιον) is a town and a municipality on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform it is one of the three municipalities on the islan ...

and Northwest of

Poros Poros ( el, Πόρος) is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, about south from the port of Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the ...

. The Ionian Sea lies to the east with the Strait of Ithaca. Forests surround the cave and the mountain slope is to the west. Near the cave is the entry to the cave with parking lots and is passed almost in the middle of the main road linking Sami and Agia Efimia especially to the northern part of the island. Some say the water is so clear the boats look like they are floating on air.

Nearest places

, north * Karavomylos, south

Geography

*Location: **Longitude: 20.6 (20°37′25″) E **Latitude: 38.26 (38°15′25″) N *Elevation: Ionian Sea

Information

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

, Melissani was the Cave of the

Nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label= Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

s. It features a lake surrounded with trees and forest, and is located east of the mountains of Evmorfia and

Agia Dynati Agia Dynati (Greek: Αγία Δυνατή, en, Saint Dynati) is the second highest Greek mountain of Cefalonia (1131 m.), after Mount Ainos (Mavrovouno). It is also the third highest mountain of the Ionian Islands, after Ainos and Elati (Lefkad ...

. Tourism is common. The lake's bottom is covered with stones. Plants grow at the opening of the cave. The color of the stone near the opening is stucco to honey-like brown. The cave was rediscovered in 1951 by Giannis Petrocheilos.

Hydrogeology

Melissani cave is a typical feature of karst environment in coastal carbonate aquifer. It forms a kind of

cenote A cenote ( or ; ) is a natural pit cave, pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. The regional term is specifically associated with the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where cenotes were commonly ...

, as described in the Yucatán peninsula (Mexico). The vertical shaft gives access to the water table (where you can do a round trip on a small boat). This groundwater is brackish, mixing between fresh water recharge inland and sea water intruded in depth in the island. Huge karst conduits have been explored by speleo-divers. The bay of Sami has many cenotes, with impressive shafts, that have been inventoried in a GIS Database ee external links The brackish water flowing through the cenotes outflows along the sea shore, forming brackish coastal and submarine springs. The groundwater of Melissani cave outflows at the "Fridi" beach. This brackish water is part of a famous hydrogeological phenomena : seawater is sucked in the west part of the island of Kefalonia, near Argostoli, and expelled in the bay of Sami.''Salt water encroachment in the low-altitude karst water horizons of the island of Kephallinia''
V. Maurin, J. Zoetl. Symposium on hydrology of fractured rocks 1965, IAHS Redbooks Pub74 1967. In Argostoli, the seawater flows into sinkholes, named katavothres, where water mill turns.

References

External links