Grotta Gigante
Encyclopedia
| Grotta Gigante Giant Cave |
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| Country: |  ItalyItaly Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... |
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| Region: | Friuli-Venezia Giulia Friuli-Venezia Giulia Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is... |
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| Province: | Trieste Province of Trieste The Province of Trieste is a province in the autonomous Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Trieste.It has an area of 212 km², and a total population of 236,520... |
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| Municipality: | Sgonico Sgonico Sgonico is a comune in the Province of Trieste in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 12 km northwest of Trieste, on the border with Slovenia. , it had a population of 2,130 and an area of 31.3 km²... |
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| Coordinates Geographic coordinate system A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on the Earth to be specified by a set of numbers. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represent vertical position, and two or three of the numbers represent horizontal position... : |
45°42′33.18"N 13°45′49.79"E | |||
| Time zone Time zone A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times... : |
CET Central European Time Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00... , UTC+1 UTC+1 UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as .This time is used in:*Central European Time*West Africa Time*Western European Summer Time**British Summer Time**Irish Standard Time... |
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| Type: | Karst cave Karst topography Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, but has also been documented for weathering resistant rocks like quartzite given the right conditions.Due to subterranean drainage, there... |
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| Length: | 280 m (918.6 ft) | |||
| Elevation Elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface .... : |
265 amsl Above mean sea level The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach... |
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| Depth: | 115 m (377.3 ft) | |||
| Website | Grotta Gigante | |||
Grotta Gigante ("Giant Cave"), also known as Riesengrotte or as Grotta di Brisciachi, is a giant cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
on the Italian side of the Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
Carso
Kras
Karst ; also known as the Karst Plateau, is a limestone borderline plateau region extending in southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It lies between the Vipava Valley, the low hills surrounding the valley, the westernmost part of the Brkini Hills, northern Istria, and the Gulf of Trieste...
, in the municipality
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
of Sgonico
Sgonico
Sgonico is a comune in the Province of Trieste in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 12 km northwest of Trieste, on the border with Slovenia. , it had a population of 2,130 and an area of 31.3 km²...
. Its central cavern is 107 metres (351 ft) high, 65 metres (213.3 ft) wide and 130 metres (426.5 ft) long putting it in the 1995 Guinness Book of Records
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...
as the world's largest tourist cave.
The cave contains many large stalactites and stalagmite
Stalagmite
A stalagmite is a type of speleothem that rises from the floor of a limestone cave due to the dripping of mineralized solutions and the deposition of calcium carbonate. This stalagmite formation occurs only under certain pH conditions within the underground cavern. The corresponding formation on...
s, many of exceptional beauty. A feature of the stalagmites is their "dish-pile" appearance, formed by water dropping from up to 80 m (262.5 ft) above and depositing calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...
over a wide area.
Cave
The enormous hall is 107 m (351 ft) high, 130 m (426.5 ft) long and 65 m (213.3 ft) large. A steep yet comfortable path with atmospheric electric lighting allows the visitor to spend about 45 minutes in this impressive underground world with its rich calcite concretions, the highest of which is no less than 12 m (39.4 ft) high.The exceptional characteristics, and the constant temperatures in the giant cave throughout the year, have suggested the positioning of two geodetic pendula, 100 m (328.1 ft) high approximately (the longest in the world) and other scientific instruments.
History
The cave was first explored by Antonio Federico Lindner in 1840. In those days, the karstKARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
behind Trieste was being searched for the underground water of the Timavo
Timavo
The River, known in Slovene as the or , is a 2-km river in the Province of Trieste. It has four sources near San Giovanni near Duino and outflows in the Gulf of Panzano between Trieste and Monfalcone , Italy....
river so as to be able to plan the city's aqueduct
Aqueduct
An aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....
. In 1897, it was fully mapped by Andrea Perko, in 1905, properly equipped for guided tours and in 1908, inaugurated. After World War I, ownership went to the Julian Alpine Society. Tourism only really began in 1957, when electricity was installed, unveiling new perspectives and details.
Museum
The Museum of speleologySpeleology
Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form and change over time...
is near the cave and besides the various speleological, geological and paleontological finds it also includes some valuable archeological pieces and a poster collection of the cave. Two wide parking lots are available on the outside. Visits are scheduled in good times and with expert guides.