Ochtinská aragonitová jaskyňa

Slovakia

You do not walk into Ochtinská aragonitová jaskyňa through a natural mouth in the rock, because it never had one that anyone found. The cave lies on the north-western slope of Hrádok in the Revúca Highlands, between Jelšava and Štítnik, sealed inside what geologists call the Ochtiná cryptokarst. It came to light by accident in 1954, when Martin Cangár and Jiří Prošek, workers with the East Slovak ore survey in Jelšava, were driving an exploratory tunnel named Kapusta. Staff from Turista looked it over in 1955, probing work followed in 1956, and only after a purpose-built access tunnel was begun in 1966 could the public come in, in 1972. It was opened as one of just three aragonite caves in the world, and it is now a national natural monument inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Written with AI from the Wikipedia article Ochtinská aragonitová jaskyňa (sk.wikipedia.org); facts only from there
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