Kinga Székely’s research while affiliated with Budapest Institute and other places

In Hungary, geographical publications already mentioned special karst objects more than half a thousand years ago. About 250 years ago, some authors explicitly dealt with limestone mountains including their spectacular large cave entrances and their famous gorges. The caves of Hungary are widely known in the world based on their natural, cultural and historical values as well as their role in scientific research, despite the fact that there are no Hungarian caves among the longest or deepest caves in the world. In many cases, the hypogenic caves in Hungary served as study areas even for foreign researchers. The “Bükk Culture” is an internationally acknowledged denomination for a prehistoric culture named after the artefacts found in the caves of the Bükk Mountains. Likewise, the Middle Pliocene "Estramontinum" vertebrate biostratigraphic stage refers to the exploration site at Esztramos Hill. The work of Hungarian cave researchers contributed to solving the problems of several special karstic phenomena (e.g. the formation of helictites, the effect of tidal phenomena on the discharge of karst springs). Furthermore, the contribution of Hungarian cave researchers was also important in establishing new scientific fields (e.g. biospeleology) or raising them to an international level (e.g. speleotherapy). Our oldest-known, best-researched cave system is Baradla, which is one of the longest dripstone caves in the temperate zone with an active stream, and one of the earliest tourist caves in the world. In the nineteenth century, it was recorded as the second-longest cave in the world after Mammoth Cave (USA). The international reputation of our researchers and the universal value of our caves are proved by the fact that Hungary hosted the 10th International Speleological World Congress in 1989, and the caves of Aggtelek Karst (together with Slovak Karst) are the only objects listed in the Natural Category of World Heritage sites in Hungary.KeywordsSurface karst phenomena and landformsArchaeological findingsCave explorationCave mappingCave protection

Two small limestone ridges, Tyuya-Muyun and Kara-Tash, located in the southern fringe of the intermontane Fergana Valley in SW Kyrgyzstan, host a suite of caves, some of which previously contained Ra, U, and Cu ores that were emptied by mining in the first half of the twentieth century. In early 1920’s, mining geologists used the concept of “classical” karst to predict the morphology of ore lodes. These predictions proved largely unsuccessful, because the origin of karst was more complex than first predicted. Speleogenetic history of the massifs comprises of early epigene, hypogene (thermal, ore bearing), and late epigene karst stages. Some caves bear traces of all three stages, whereas others are monogenetic (hypogene).