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The Velebit mountains of
Lukina jama, from the Speleological Committee of the Croatian Mountaineering Association
Caves of Croatia Limestone caves Karst formations of Croatia Wild caves {{-
The Velebit mountains of Croatia
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...
have several deep cave
Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...
s with some of the world's largest subterranean vertical drops.
The "Lukina jama" cave is 1431 m deep (2013), the deepest cave in Croatia and 17th deepest cave in the world and the deepest cave in southeast Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
.Radovan Radovinovič, The Croatian Adriatic Tourist Guide, pg. 143, Zagreb (1999), At its foot, there are ponds and streams including one of the largest known colonies of subterranean leech
Leeches are segmented parasitism, parasitic or Predation, predatory worms that comprise the Class (biology), subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the Oligochaeta, oligochaetes, which include the earthwor ...
es ('' Erpobdella mestrovi''), which has been ascertained to represent a new species, genus and also family. Other species discovered in the system, include the air-breathing land snails '' Zospeum tholussum''. Like Lukina jama, Slovačka jama, Velebita and Meduza are also located at the " Hajdučki i Rožanski kukovi" special reserve, a dedicated part of the Sjeverni Velebit national park
A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
.
Other notable caves include the "Slovačka jama" ('' Slovak pit''), (1,320 m deep), "Velebita" (1026 m deep with underground free fall vertical drop of 513 metres ) and "Meduza" (679 m deep).
The vertical shaft "Patkov Gušt", named after a deceased Croatian speleologist is 553 meters deep and the second deepest pitch in the world .
See also
*List of caves
This is a list of caves of the world that have articles or that are properly cited. They are sorted by continent and then country. Caves which are in overseas territories on a different continent than the home country are sorted by the territory' ...
* List of deepest caves
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
* List of Dinaric caves
* Speleology
Speleology () is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their chemical composition, composition, structure, physical property, physical properties, history, ecology, and the processes by which they form (speleogenes ...
References
External links
Lukina jama, from the Speleological Committee of the Croatian Mountaineering Association
Caves of Croatia Limestone caves Karst formations of Croatia Wild caves {{-