Pestera Ursilor

Pestera Ursilor (Bears’Cave) is the most famous show cave in Romania owing to both the abundance of spectacular speleothems and the large number of fossil remains of cave bears. It is located in the Bihor Mountains (Western Carpathians, Apuseni Natural Park) and was discovered in 1975 by blasting in a local quarry. Two artificial entrances were excavated and fitted with airlocks. Visitors use different accesses for entrance and exit but in the deeper part of the cave the trail is walked through twice by the groups. This cave is a typical example of a show cave where artificial entrances have been caused a change in microclimate despite the airlocks. The lighting system uses incandescent bulbs and lampenflora is forming on walls and speleothems in smaller-sized passages and over the displayed fossil remains. The cave attracts yearly more than 120,000 visitors.

Speleothems in the "Emill Racovita" Passage.

Incandescent lighting favored the development of lampenflora in Ursilor Cave.

Lampenflora developed on a reconstructed skeleton of Ursus spelaeus, despite repeated cleanings.

Abundant Holocene formations in the Candlesticks Passage, Ursilor Cave.

Below you will find some photographs of our group's activities in Ursilor.

November 2014 - First installation of monitoring station for calibration and testing purposes

Installation of the PUC 5 people counter in the final sector of the show cave.

The PUC 6 station, located in the undeveloped sector of the cave and used as a reference station.

Here we monitor CO2 levels, temperature, RH, and drip rates.

The drip logger installed in the PUC 6 station. The logger is placed on top of a synthetic sock filled with sand,

the best solution to ensure stability. A thin glass plate placed on its top allows for calcite deposition.

Calcite deposited, as well as instant water samples  are collected bimonthly for stable isotope and geochemical analyses.

A typical warning notice placed at monitoring sites.