Between 29th July and 11th August 2019, an international team of cavers from Austria, Bosnia-Herzegowina, France, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, the UK, USA and Croatia has targeted the northern most parts of Hajdu?ki Kukovi and the Vratarski Kuk area in the northern Velebit mountains. The expedition was supported by European Speleological Federation FSE.
A main target was Jama Nedam, which was discovered in 1997 during a Croatian expedition and has been explored to -247 m.
At that depth a meander with a very strong draught was encountered.
During the 2019 expedition, a narrow passage in the meander at -250m was discovered, which led to the deeper parts of the cave. At the end of the expedition, a depth of -740 m was reached, taking the cave to 7th place on the list of deepest caves of Croatia.
Following the expedition, exploration continued and Nedam has now been pushed to rank 4 of the deepest caves in Croatia (-1,021 m).
There is high potential to extend the depth of Nedam Cave in the future.
In total 70 caves have been investigated and 40 new caves were found.
Forty-three caves were surveyed, three of which are more than 100 m deep.
The expedition also conducted scientific research including hydrogeology, biospelology, physical, geochemical and speleobotanical measurements, sampling and monitoring.
This research was carried out in collaboration with the Northern Velebit National Park and Croatian scientific institutions.
Mor information about the exploration project at: http://www.eurospeleo.eu/
Italian version:
https://www.scintilena.com/spedizione-internazionale-nel-velebit-settentrionale-scopre-la-quarta-grotta-piu-profonda-della-croazia/12/10/