Lapa Terra Ronca

Last updated
Lapa Terra Ronca
Caverna Terra Ronca I
Caverna Terra Ronca.jpg
Caverna Terra Ronca
Relief Map of Brazil.jpg
Red pog.svg
Location São Domingos, Posse & Guarani de Goiás, Goiás
Coordinates 13°59′21″S46°37′35″W / 13.98917°S 46.62639°W / -13.98917; -46.62639 Coordinates: 13°59′21″S46°37′35″W / 13.98917°S 46.62639°W / -13.98917; -46.62639
Length760 m (2,490 ft)
Geology Dolomitic limestone

Lapa Terra Ronca or Caverna Terra Ronca I (GO-063), is a dolomitic limestone cave inside the area of the Terra Ronca State Park, which houses the largest collection of caves and grottoes in the midwest with a number of about 200 being that only Terra Ronca and Angelica are open for the tourists. It is located about 400 kilometers from Brasília, midway between the municipalities of São Domingos, Posse e Guarani de Goiás, in the State of Goiás, Brazil.

Contents

Thousands of years ago, a landslide caused its division into two parts. The first can be visited easily, but the second part requires a tour guide. It's called Terra Ronca II or Malhada, also of gigantic proportions. It has two skylights, one of them called Araras and a large gallery called Lovers' Hall decorated with rich stalactites and stalagmites and huge sand dunes crossed by the underground Lapa river.

Geology

Indeed, geologists working for the state park say that the whole area where the cave is located was sea bottom about 600 million years, considering the many sea shells found around the area. It was formed by the continuous action of rain water and the Lapa River that comes down from the Serra Geral. Its name comes from the roaring sound produced by this river running through its 5.8 kilometres (3.6 mi) long route the two craters on the surface arisen from seismic activity millions of years ago, many halls of stalactites and stalagmites of impressive dimensions of up to 150,000 square metres (1,600,000 sq ft) and columns with more than 590 meters high. [1]

Terra Ronca has a cave mouth of 96 metres (315 ft) high and 120 metres (390 ft) wide, [2] with an altar measuring 760 metres (2,490 ft) long and 100 metres (330 ft) high [3] where the religious ceremony of Bom Jesus da Lapa da Terra Ronca takes place at the beginning of August. [4]

The Salao dos Namorados (English: Lovers Hall), besides the ceiling of the cave shaped in the form of a clock, the Oco das Araras, a fantastic place where many parrots live, and Clarabóia, another output of Terra Ronca for those who do not want to stay longer inside the cave are other highlights found here. There are several other output options like the Pesqueiro 1 and 2. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

Unaí Municipality in Southeast, Brazil

Unaí is a municipality in the Northern Region of Minas Gerais, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, in the Southeast Region of Brazil. It is located 590 km from the capital of Minas Gerais and 164 km from the federal capital. Unaí is the main municipality of its micro-region of the same name and, together with Paracatu, the most important city of the said mesoregion of Minas Gerais. Due to its geopolitical location, because it is geographically and politically linked to Brasilia and politically to Belo Horizonte, the municipality has a strong economic dynamism for a municipality that still carries the typically mineiro custom.

Buraco das Araras (Goiás)

Buraco das Araras (GO-016) is one of the largest quartzitic caves located in the State of Goiás, Brazil. It is located about 120 kilometres (75 mi) west of Brasília and 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from the district of Bezerra, in the municipality of Formosa. It is considered one of the largest sinkholes (dolinas) in the world.

Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park

Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park is a national park of Brazil located in the state of Goiás, on the top of an ancient plateau with an estimated age of 1.8 billion years. The park was created on January 11, 1961 by President Juscelino Kubitschek, and listed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2001. It occupies an area of 655 square kilometres (253 sq mi) in the municipalities of Alto Paraíso de Goiás, Cavalcante and Colinas do Sul. The park is maintained by Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation.

Witches Cave

The Witches' Cave is a cave, a nature reserve and a national natural monument in Argentina. It is located in the Moncol Hill, at 1,830 metres (6,000 ft) above mean sea level, within the Malargüe Department, in the south of Mendoza Province, about 65 kilometres (40 mi) southwest of the town of Malargüe.

Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park

Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park is a national park in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It is noted for its large limestone caves.

Cavernas do Peruaçu Environmental Protection Area

Cavernas do Peruaçu Environmental Protection Area is a protected area in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Castellana Caves

The Castellana Caves are a karst cave system located in the municipality of Castellana Grotte, in the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy.

Parque Nacional de las Cavernas del Río Camuy Cave system in Camuy, Puerto Rico

The Parque Nacional de las Cavernas del Río Camuy is a cave system in Puerto Rico. It is located between the municipalities of Camuy, Hatillo, and Lares in northwestern Puerto Rico, but the main entrance to the park is located in Quebrada, Camuy. The caverns are part of a large network of natural limestone caves and underground waterways carved out by the third-largest underground river in the world, the Río Camuy. The cave system was "discovered" in 1958 and was first documented in the 1973 book Discovery at the Río Camuy (ISBN 0-517-50594-0) by Russell and Jeanne Gurnee, but there is archaeological evidence that these caves were explored hundreds of years ago by the Taíno Indians, Puerto Rico's first inhabitants. Over 10 miles of caverns, 220 caves and 17 entrances to the Camuy cave system have been mapped so far. This, however, is only a fraction of the entire system which many experts believe still holds another 800 caves. Only a small part of the complex is open to the public. The 268-acre park built around the cave system features tours of some of the caves and sinkholes, and is one of the most popular natural attractions in Puerto Rico. As of January 2019, the park is still closed for Hurricane Maria recovery.

Caverna da Tapagem

Caverna da Tapagem (SP-002), also Caverna do Diabo, is a cave located within the Jacupiranga State Park next to the Alto Ribeira Tourist State Park, in the municipality of Eldorado Paulista, Iporanga, 280 km from São Paulo, Brazil. It is the second longest cave in the state of São Paulo and also the highlight of what the local guides call "Circuit Disneyland," which is a series of family attractions that people of all ages can enjoy.

Gruta de Maquiné

Gruta de Maquiné (MG-0243), also Lapa Nova de Maquiné, is the oldest and one of the most commercially visited caves in Brazil. It is located about 5 km (3.1 mi) from Cordisburgo and 143 km (88.9 mi) northwest of Belo Horizonte, in the State of Minas Gerais. The cave has seven huge chambers explored, amounting to 650 m (2,130 ft) (linear) and unevenness of the ground of only 18 m (59 ft). Safety measures like lighting, walkways and handrails allow a multitude of visitors to enjoy safely the wonders of the grotto where the whole journey is accompanied by an experienced local guide.

Guy Christian Collet was a French scientist, explorer and spelunker who came to live in Brazil after World War II. In the karstic region along the Ribeira valley in the State of Sao Paulo he began the exploration for caverns and grottos, becoming later founder and chairman of two speleological societies of deep respectability in the field of speleology in the country. He did work in the areas of underground biology, archeology, nutrition techniques in caves, besides having published several books and reports on the subject.

Gruta do Centenário

Gruta do Centenário (MG-1081), is a cave located in the municipality of Mariana, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It is the largest and deepest quartzite cave in the world, and second in the country in terms of unevenness. Other caves which are part of the same system have now been partially explored.

Gruta do Janelão

Gruta do Janelão (MG-199) is a limestone cave located inside the Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park, in the municipality of Januária, Minas Gerais, Brazil. This cave is the largest in the valley, totaling 4,740 m of horizontal extension and elevation of 176m. Because it has several skylights letting the sun in, small forests that resemble Japanese gardens by the delicacy and harmony are formed everywhere, all by the banks of the Peruaçu River which runs through the Janelão grotto. It has the largest stalactite already registered measuring 28 meters long.

Conjunto São Mateus (GO-011) is a complex of caves measuring 20500 meters long and considered until recently as the largest in Brazil, being replaced by the Toca da Boa Vista. It is located inside Terra Ronca State Park, in the speleologic district of São Domingos, State of Goiás. It is one of the richest in speleothems including the famous "Hall of the Pearls", where visitors should go barefoot to avoid the transposition of sediment. It houses the typical fauna of the caves, including the blind catfish. Inside the cave flows the São Mateus river, forming beaches and leaving successive halls along the way.

Sai Yok National Park

Sai Yok National Park is a national park in Sai Yok district, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. The park, home to mountains, waterfalls and caves, is part of the Western Forest Complex protected area.

Buraco das Araras Private Natural Heritage Reserve

The Buraco das Araras Private Natural Heritage Reserve is a privately operated conservation area in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. It takes its name from the Buraco das Araras, a large sinkhole that is the main feature of the reserve.

Sumidouro State Park

The Sumidouro State Park is a state park in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The remains of the first human inhabitants of Brazil were found in the park area in the early 19th century, along with bones of now-extinct megafauna. The main attraction is the Gruta da Lapinha, a large limestone cave.

Pirineus State Park

The Pireneus State Park, erroneously spelled "Pirineus", is a state park in the state of Goiás, Brazil. It protects an area of cerrado that includes the highest peak in the region, the 1,385 metres (4,544 ft) Pico dos Pireneus, on the watershed between the Plata and Tocantins river basins

Campinhos State Park

The Campinhos State Park is a state park in the state of Paraná, Brazil. The environment has been much degraded by human activity and is in the process of regeneration, but there are areas of the original Araucaria Forest. The main attraction is the 500 metres (1,600 ft) long Jesuits Cave, with many speleothems such as stalagmites and stalactites.

References

  1. Cactos. "Caverna de Terra Ronca". Cactos.com.br. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
  2. David Cleary; Dilwyn Jenkins; Oliver Marshall; Jim Hine (1994). Brazil: the rough guide. Rough Guides. p. 425. ISBN   1-85828-102-4.
  3. Caliandra do Cerrado. "Terra Ronca". Caliandra do Cerrado. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
  4. Sociedade Brasileira de Espeleologia (2001). Entre o Sagrado e o Profano (PDF). SBE. p. 525.
  5. Oliveira, Wagner. "Terra Ronca". Warner Oliveira. Retrieved 31 December 2011.