Arabika Massif

Arabika Massif from Aibga
View from the Black Sea in the mid-19th century

Arabika Massif (Arabika) is a glacially eroded karst outcropping of the Gagra Range, Abkhazia,[note 1] Georgia in the West Caucasus, by the city of Gagra. The highest elevation - mountain Arabika is 2,656 metres (8,714 ft).[1][2]

Geology

The 13-km-long massif is composed of Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic limestones that dip continuously southwest to the Black Sea and plunge below the modern sea level.[3] The area is densely wooded, with large areas of both coniferous forest and mixed woodland.

The Arabika contains a number of remarkable caves, gorges, wells, and precipices, including the three deepest-measured caves in the world, Sarma cave (1,830 m, 6,000 ft), Veryovkina Cave (2,209 m, 7,247 ft), and Voronya Cave (2,224 m, 7,297 ft). Alexander Kruber was the first to explore some of these features in 1909.

According to Rebecca Felix, the Arabica's "towering heights of limestone suggest the possibility of amazingly deep caves, boring the length of the massif and into the earth below its base".[4]

Notes

  1. ^ The political status of Abkhazia is disputed. Having unilaterally declared independence from Georgia in 1992, Abkhazia is formally recognised as an independent state by 5 UN member states (two other states previously recognised it but then withdrew their recognition), while the remainder of the international community recognizes it as de jure Georgian territory. Georgia continues to claim the area as its own territory, designating it as Russian-occupied territory.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arabika.
  1. ^ Mta Arabika GeoNames
  2. ^ Great Soviet Encyclopaedia
  3. ^ Tabor, James M. (2010). Blind Descent: The quest to discover the deepest place on Earth. New York: Random House. p. 159. ISBN 978-1-4000-6767-1.
  4. ^ Felix, R. (2014). Exploring Caves. ABDO Publishing Company. p. 48. ISBN 9781629680453. Retrieved 2015-04-13.

43°25′N 40°20′E / 43.41°N 40.34°E / 43.41; 40.34


This Abkhazia location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Stub icon

This Georgia location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.