Wadi Sannur Cave

Michael Laumanns - 29/11/2015

(Eastern Desert, 60 km west of Beni Suef Alt. 245 m. E031'17,108'; N28"37,373') At present the longest published cave of Egypt, formed in Alabaster of Eocene age. It was opened by blasting in a quarry in 1991. The cave has a rich diversity of partly massive speleothems, which were dated to be of Early to Middle Holocene age (Railsback et al. 2002). However, a previous study showed considerable scatter in the age of the speleothems (Dabous & Osmond 2000). Sannur Cave is protected (Wadi Sannur Protected Area) and a serious candidate for World Heritage Site status due to the fact that it is interpreted as a large and at least 40 million years old covered gour curving around an ancient thermal spring deposit— the largest known example of its kind on a world-wide scale (Halliday 2003a, 2003b). The cave has been surveyed several times with the first map published by G.Gültekin et al. (1997). Another survey was conducted by an Italian team (CIRS) led by R.Ruggieri in 2000/2001 (Ruggieri 2001). Map according to Gültekin et al. (1997).