Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Sannur Cave, Beni Suef, Egypt




LONE ACACIA TREE
After driving for hours – and seeing nothing but desert sand – you come across an acacia tree, standing completely alone, surrounded by nothingness. This tree is the only one for hundreds of kilometers; its roots go very deep, tapping into a reservoir that keeps it alive. This poetic scene is a case of beauty surviving even in the harshest of environments. Yes, you just arrived to Sannur Cave.

Formed by groundwater percolating through the earth, Sannur Cave dates back some 60 million years. And it's just a day trip from modern Cairo.

SANNUR CAVE SITE

The age of the cave is estimated at around 60 million years. To be precise, there are two chambers, one estimated at 60 million years old, the other 20 million years old. A narrow corridor, just a meter long, connects the two chambers.

It is this coupling of two formations from vastly different eras (a staggering 40 million years apart) that marks out Sannur as among the one of the rare natural spots in the world.

It doesn’t take an expert to see the remarkable difference between the two chambers. One has long-and-pointy formations sticking out every direction, like an underwater cave on a reef, while the other has uniform bubble-like formations covering every inch of its walls.

GALALA MOUNTAINS
One of the magical features of Sannur is the internal temperature. While sunny and hot outside the cave, inside it remained cool and breezy. The inner temperature hardly changes at all through the seasons.

This fact was a little difficult to comprehend, given that the cave is in the middle of Upper Egypt’s desert, with only a small hole connecting it to the outside world.


Sannur Cave Protectorate is located in the Beni-Suef governorate of Egypt and lies at 70 km southeast of the city of Beni Suef and 200 km from Cairo. The place has many geographical formations of stalactites and stalagmites as well. The reserve becomes even more important due to the natural formations present here many of which are rare and hard to find elsewhere. The reserve is filled with a large number of quarries dating back to different eras.

Discovery
NOTICE ENTRANCE TO THE RIGHT
The alabaster digging operations, which is still continued, led to the discovery of 54 big cavities that opened way to the caves and were present at the bottom of the earth. The reserve has just one chamber or cave in it. The cave here extends to an area of 700 meters and has a depth and width of 15 meters respectively. The caves contain geographical formations, which are referred as ups and downs. The most important feature of the natural formations is the quality and also the rare nature of these, which are found nowhere else on the globe. The researchers and geologists thus find this reserve very important to learn and do conductive research and studies about the environmental and other conditions that prevailed during the ancient times.

SANNUR CAVE VIEW
The Sannur Caves were discovered in the 1989s after a blasting in the quarry led to opening of an entranceway to the chamber. The cave is overlaid with alabaster that has been brought by the thermal springs and the chamber is made of limestone. The unique geography and natural formations make this place very popular and recognized as a protectorate by a decree in 1992.

Formation
STALACTITES & STALAGMITES
Sannur Cave is a classic karst cave (Karst: is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves) created by groundwater percolating through the Eocene limestone of the Galala Plateau (a mountain renowned by marble quarries). It is the best example of this type of cave in Egypt. As the water percolates downwards, excess calcium carbonates are deposited on the roof and floor of the cave forming spectacular stalactites and stalagmites of various forms. When a light is shone on them, they glitter like a wonderland. Above ground, there are deposits of the red soil (terra rossa) associated with such formations, as well as several swallow-holes (dolines or “depression”).

AMAZING COLOR FORMATION
Sannur Cave is characterized by the presence of geological formations known as Stalactites and Stalagmites in a perfect beautiful formed over millions of years, about 60 million years ago dates back to the Era of Middle Eocene. Leakage of aqueous solutions of calcium carbonate saturated through the roof of the cave and then evaporated, leaving the mineral salts that accumulated in the form of deposits of stalactites and stalagmites. The cave is important to the scarcity of such natural formations “Egyptian Alabaster” as it is of great importance for researchers, Geologists, and Caving fans.

GROUP VISIT

Stalactite and stalagmite, elongated forms of various minerals deposited from solution by slowly dripping water. A stalactite hangs like an icicle from the ceiling or sides of a cavern . A stalagmite appears like an inverted stalactite, rising from the floor of a cavern.