Zápoľná Cave

Fourteen metres deep cave was discovered during preparatory field work for the dam in 1939 – 1941. It is located under a steep limestone cliff Zápoľná, on the right hand side of the Čierny Váh valley close to the Svarín settlement. The entrance is at elevation of 755 m, 50 m above the bottom of the valley.

The Zápoľná Cave is formed in a rather narrow belt of Gutenstein limestones belonging to the White Váh series of the Choč Nappe. These aim to the northeast to the Kozie chrbty Hills and Važecký karst. New cave spaces were discovered by the caving group from Liptovský Mikuláš in 1997 and 1998. Thus the cave reached the length of 1,721 m with vertical span of 59 m.

The cave spaces represent a complicated labyrinth of passages and shafts, formed by corrosion activities of water connected with collapses and breakdowns of underground cavities. The cave is characteristic by oval and irregularly modelled spaces without signs of river modelling. Their origin was conditioned by slow water circulation and stagnation. The lowest parts of the cave comprise deep water siphons reaching under the level of Čierny Váh river, and their water level doesn’t coincide with the changes in the surface river.

The sedimentary cave fills are formed of loam, somewhere fine sand and debris. Frost weathering is boldly apparent in its entrance parts. By now no typical cave animals were found in this cave including bats, also due to little investigations in this field.

The Zápoľná Cave presents a typical example of corrosive cave formed in deeper zone of stagnant underground water.