Mitzpe Shlagim Cave, Hermon

Elevation

2165 m above sea level

Cave mapView the map (PDF)

Description of the cave:

Mitzpe Shlagim Cave was surveyed and studied by the Israel Cave Research Center (ICRC) in 1995, after it was exposed in 1993 during land preparation work by the army. The cave developed in limestone of the Hermon Formation, Jurassic age. Its maximum depth is 51.5 m.

The cave is built of two vertical chimneys, apparently vadose, but it is difficult to discern the original dissolution marks since most of the cave walls are covered with impressive speleothems: flowstone, elephant ears, stalactites and stalagmites, corals, pagodas and cave pearls (in puddles)."

Cave pearls are in fact cave ooids. They form in pools whose water is saturated with carbonate solute. The solute is precipitated from the solution directly onto clastic bodies within the pool: sand grains, lumps of stone, organic matter or fragments of cave deposits. Travertine deposited from the pool water coats its floor and builds 'nests' around the pearls.

At the bottom of the cave (below pit 2) there are a number of small pools, some of which contain cave pearls. The water temperature is 7.5 degrees Celsius and the air temperature is 8 degrees Celsius, air humidity about 100%.

At the deepest point in the cave there is an almost empty pool, from which a puddle 0.1 m in diameter remains. A coral-like pool deposit with a horizontal band at its top marks the high water level, which is about 0.5 m above the current level. Above this level there are well-developed vadose cave corals + aragonite urchins.

Notes:

• The cave entrance is closed with an iron lid with a lock, on which heavy rocks are placed.

In summer 2006 the cave made headlines when Major General Yiftach Ron-Tal organized his IDF discharge party inside the cave.

The 2006 article - Generals Only Admitted

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Written by: Amos Frumkin, Eyal Kamchi, Azriel Raikin, Rai Raz, Yinon Shevtiel.

Edited by Yoav Negev