MAARAS - AGITIS SPRINGS EXPLORATION
Maaras is one of the most important caverns in Greece. Appart from
being the second largest after the Cavern of Diros, it has also some of
the biggest rooms that have ever been recorded in our country and is
also the biggest active carstic tube
In 2002,SPELEO organized two missions one for familiarization with the
cave and one expeditionary. The results were very interesting as we
advanced the exploration, growing the known length of the cavern to
above 10,000 metres, and performed several cave dives (some of them
8,000 metres inside the cavern).
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For more info and general description see
- Familiarization Mission
of SPELEO, February 2002. The purpose of this trip was to
familiarize the team with the cave and to prepare for the major
expedition. Cave dives were done on both the left and right junctions.
The left siphon had never been dived before and according to the diver,
KK, proved to be difficult with very low starting visibility and
unsteady slopes.
- 10-day Expeditionary
Mission of SPELEO, September 2002 (Complete article from the Greek
magazine "Panorama"). All of our club has moved up north for the
expedition! For ten days a total of 25 persons have camped
outside the cave. The targets: to explore the left siphon, to explore
the right siphon and to explore a possible continuation, a
waterfall.The
first days were spent ferrying gear (17 scuba tanks, regulators,
lights, safety equipment).Then a five person team passed the siphon at
6,000 meters and moved the gear to the next unexplored siphon 1,500
meters further in. A first dive was done there, the siphon passed and
an extra 150 meters of cave were explored where an other siphon was
found. This was dived to -17 but it proved to be going deeper and the
small bottles were not sufficient.After two days the team was back.
This time the siphon was dived to -31 meters and 90 meters penetration
adding a total of around 290 meters of new passages.At the same
time the left junction siphon was dived to -25 meters and 50 meters
length adding a further 50 meters to the cave.The waterfall was climbed
but proved not to continue. 80 meters of new passages were mapped and
added to the cave system.The cave was extended totally by 450 meters
and was mapped almost totally using also a Laser distance measurement
device.
Other links :
http://www.seedrama.com/
http://1lyk-dramas.dra.sch.gr/drama/maarasCave.htm
http://www.showcaves.com/english/gr/showcaves/Maara.html
http://users.otenet.gr/~prosoma/maaras.htm