engleski

Caves under Dubrovnik airport in Croatia

Six speleological sites are known to exist at the premises of the Dubrovnik Airport in Croatia. This is a highly weathered area that has been in the focus of attention of speleologists ever since the airport was built in 1961/62. Two vertical caves with the depth of 31 m and 10.5 m were discovered at that time. Both are now situated right underneath the new control tower of the Dubrovnik Airport. A tunnel entrance to the cave that has been known to local population for a long time is situated in the immediate vicinity of the control tower. In late 1950s, the cave entrances were closed with concrete because of a military airport construction, but a tunnel was built to enable access to the cave. The cave is about 200 m long and it fully occupies the space underneath the concrete runways of the Dubrovnik Airport. Thanks to efforts made by speleologists in 2010 the cave was adapted to enable tourist visits, and it is now the world’s only tourist cave underneath an operating airport. During apron extension activities in May 2012, three additional speleological sites were discovered and examined, together with other previously discovered caves, from the standpoint of geophysics, geology and speleology.

speleology; Croatia; karst; Dubrovnik; airport

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