CHABARBU ROCK SHELTER

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 15/07/2016

A semicircular cave entrance, about 10 m wide and 5 m high at its apex. Having entered the portal, the ceiling abruptly rises to a height of about 10 m. Only a few metres from the entrance the ceiling plunges down again along the flat, layer-controlled back wall of the cave. The cave clearly has originated from frost action and the almost vertically dipping rock layers of different thickness disintegrated due to frost shattering. Possible karstifying water rising in the cave only permitted a greater penetration of mechanical weathering (congelifraction and subsequent gravitational removal of debris). The lower part of the inclined back wall of the cave is covered with mosses and algae. It shows tiny karren and pitting of millimetre size. Thus, the impure Jurassic Nilgiri Limestone, exposed in this cave at 4100 m asl, shows —despite of extensive frost periods and restricted solubility— limited traces of karstification, at least at the melt-water nourished rock-snow contact. SITUATION: If approaching from downhill, and passing by the foot of the rockface opposite the Chabarbu teahouse, the first Chabarbu Cave met with is this rock shelter, and some 200 m west of –>Chabarbu Waterfall Cave.