Melissani Cave () or Melissani Lake, also Melisani is a cave and

cenote A cenote ( or ; ) is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting when a collapse of limestone bedrock exposes groundwater. The term originated on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where the ancient Maya commonly used cenotes for water supplies, and ...

located on the island of

Kefalonia Kefalonia or Cephalonia (), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallonia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th-largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is also a separate regio ...

, 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 ne ...

, about Southeast of

Agia Effimia Agia Effimia () 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 village is a village, usually locat ...

, Northeast of

Argostoli Argostoli (, Katharevousa: ) is a town and a municipality on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands (region), Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2019 local government reform it is one of the three municipalities on the island. It has been the capi ...

and Northwest of

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

. This

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...

, resulting when a collapse of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

exposes

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

in 1953 creating the cenote. The

Ionian Sea The Ionian Sea (, ; or , ; , ) is an elongated bay of the Mediterranean Sea. It is connected to the Adriatic Sea to the north, and is bounded by Southern Italy, including Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, and the Salento peninsula to the west, ...

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 Karavomylos () is a fishing village and a community in the municipal unit of Sami, Cephalonia, Sami, on the island of Cephalonia, Greece. It is situated on the coast, 2km west of Sami, 6km southeast of Agia Effimia and 15km northeast of Argostoli. ...

, south

Geography

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

Information

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Melissani was the Cave of the

Nymph A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

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, ) 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 (Lefkada). Between the mo ...

. 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.

Hydrogeology

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

, 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