Kunangua N°1

Michael Laumanns - 28/11/2015

The entrance of Kunangua No. 1 is the deepest vertical pit, which was found during the project. It is a free SRT descent of 25,50 m. The pit leads to a chamber where passages to the N, S and W continue and where an air temperature of 18,9° C was measured. All passages that branches off are of phreatic origin. The cave was intensively excavated during the Portuguese colonisation. Several tons of bat guano were winched out. Pieces of corrugated iron are still visible in the cave and on top of the entrance pit. The N passage, a phreatic widened rift passage, ascents and gets very small after some metres. An upward climb is necessary to reach a 5 m long continuation in N 220° direction. The following part of the passage is too small to enter. The W passage is a phreatic enlarged rift, which ends after about 15 m without any further continuation. In the past this gallery was filled up to the roof with bat guano, which was excavated. The S gallery is a very big passage with a , keyhole, cross-section of 8 m height. A climb to the left leads to a smaller chamber on an upper level with no significant continuations. Access to this chamber is made by a climb over unstable rocks piled up during the bat guano excavation. The excavation depth reaches 6 m in this part of the cave. A 15 m long continuation in the upper part of the keyhole” of the S gallery can be reached by another 4 m climb at the end of the horizontal part of the passage The entrance shaft of the cave hosts an owl. No bats. No evidence of conglomerate infillings.