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China Caves Supplement Yorkshire Ramblers' Club Journal

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China Caves Supplement Yorkshire Ramblers' Club Journal YRC JOURNAL THE YORKSHIRE RAMBLERS CLUB MOUNTAINEERING & CAVING ETC. China Supplement Summer 2006 EXPLORATION OF CAVES IN TIAN’E AND FENSHAN, GUANGXI PROVINCE, CHINA FOREWORD This publication charts the teams’ work over two expeditions in 2004 in Guangxi. It includes articles Arguably China has the most spectacular caves and karst which are both scientific and descriptive, covering in the world. Approximately 2.6 million km² of the surveys of nearly 50 km of cave passage. It has been country is karst, with about half of it (and most of the prepared for the club but a more comprehensive report mature karst) concentrated in the southern regions. It has been produced by the team which runs to 160 pages is therefore no surprise that expeditions are continually and contains additional material and photographs and drawn to areas in Guangxi where the sheer scale of goes into more technical detail. The YRC members taking caves and karst features are always spectacular. part were Bruce Bensley, Ged Campion, Alister Renton, Graham Salmon, Dave Williams and Ernie Shield. The British cavers are playing an increasing role in the team was made up by Ruth Shield, Jane Butler, Emma exploration of these areas and during 2004 members of Porter, Dave Appleing, Tony Harrison, Mike Clayton and the Club played a major part in two expeditions to the Mike Peters. Between them they represented area, with financial support from the Club and from the the Craven Pothole Club, Cleveland Speleo Group, Mount Everest Foundation, the Ghar Parau Foundation Scarborough Caving Club and the Gloucester Speleo Club. and Andy Eaves and the China Caves project. Ged had led an earlier expedition into this province back There has been close emphasis on working with the local in 2000 supported by YRC members, John Riley, Bruce government in the provinces and with ministries of Bensley, Graham Salmon, Arthur Salmon, Alister Renton, tourism, to profile major karst areas with the promotion John Whalley and Harvey Lomas and various members of tourism in mind, but at the same time giving full had been back since. That expedition to Guangxi was consideration to important issues of protection and extremely successful having discovered and surveyed sustainability. This involves gathering scientific data seventeen kilometres of cave in just three weeks. The and providing clear outputs which give a deeper caves were comprehensively photographed and a film was understanding of of the karst areas. made by the Chinese for television. Our biologist discovered many new species of cave life and a wider Our two expeditions have visited the karst of Tian’e and chemistry project was completed on Shadong. latterly Fengshan where the longest cave in Guangxi, the Ged, as deputy leader, Bruce and Alister were back on Jiang Zhou Cave System, has been discovered. This another expedition in 2002. and with others explored project, operating in this remote karst area in the the Hidden River area. The main focus of the expedition north-west corner of Guangxi, has worked to such a high was to follow a major river into the mountainous area and standard that it has helped Jiang Zhou and the discover its route through to its resurgence. However surrounding area to achieve geopark status. Clearly the other major features were also explored and a total of benefits to the area will be considerable, bringing in thirty kilometres of new cave passage discovered over a tourism, protection to the environment and economic period of six weeks. benefits for the local people. (See Journals no. 12/15, 12/19, 12/22, 12/23.) THE EXPEDITIONs - By Ged Campion which had been the objective of the 2000 China Caves The Hidden River Expedition to Leye in 2002 Project, giving a logic to comprehensively explore this had revealed many exciting finds and yet again small corner of China’s spectacular karst. Both Tian’e demonstrated the huge potential for new caves in this and Fengshan held great promise, Tian’e with its area of Guangxi. Of particular note had been the big significant vertical range potential from its high craggy tiankengs and deep shafts, but the possibility of long, plateau to the river below, and Fengshan tantalisingly continuous, big cave passage stretching from Dashiwei near to the Bama district where the China Caves Project Tiankeng to the resurgence 20km away in the north at in 1988 had found continuously large cave passage with Beizhong had eluded the expedition. beautiful rivers and stunning karst features. However, in order to continue the China Caves Project’s Whilst Tian’e was to yield deeper caves, the Fengshan new millennium remit “to explore the significant karst area was to provide a cave of significant length, Jiang regions to the west of the Hong Shui River in North Zhou, where 7.5km of passage was surveyed in the last West Guangxi”, a China Caves Project team comprising few days of the March expedition. mostly Yorkshire Ramblers Club members, but including cavers from others clubs, was assembled and dispatched Realizing the great potential of this cave and the to Tian’e and Fengshan counties in February 2004. attractiveness of the surrounding karst features These areas were east of the spectacular Lingyun massif generally, the Fengshan local government decided to put YRC Journal China Supplement Page 2 forward the area for designation as a “geopark”, and China and the longest in Guangxi Province, at 29.2km. commissioned the Karst Institute in Guilin to complete a The main features of the system, lying under typical survey of the caves and study the karst in the area. An fengshan (tower karst) landscape, are the size and important objective of the second expedition in 2004 length of most of its passages, often up to 30-50m in was therefore to carry out exploration and survey work width and height. Possibly, given the massive size of its for the Guilin Institute and Fengshan local government, passages, the system will prove to be the largest in China but under the wider remit of the China Caves Project to in terms of underground volume. carry out comprehensive exploration of the karst in the area. The idea of a geopark is to afford some degree of The expedition also explored the Qiaoyin River system protection to important geological sites which do not and other significant caves in the Pingle, Xialjian and have the benefit of World Heritage Site status or some Poxin drainage area, including the large phreatic cave other form of protection. passages extending from Si Fang Dong to Green River Sink to the north of Jiang Zhou village and west of the The second visit in 2004 was another China Caves Ma Wang Dong system explored by the China Caves Project expedition drawn again mostly from the YRC and Project in 1989. This last cave was revisited by the other clubs which have been exploring the karst in the current expedition but a potential link between it and north-west corner of Guangxi Province for the past 5 the nearby Green River Sink eluded the team. years. The expedition was conducted over a period of a month with some of the team (11 UK members in total) As well as the Jiang Zhou Cave System, the two there for the full period and others joining half way expeditions surveyed 19 other caves in Tian’e and through the exploration. The Jiang Zhou Cave System Fengshan Counties. The length of cave passages was extended from its spring 2004 limit of 7.5km to a surveyed in total was 48.6km (30.2 miles), mostly to new length of 29.2km, making it the longest cave in BCRA Grade 5B standard. Guangxi and the third longest in China. The nearby Qiaoyin River system was also investigated, as well as A specific and important objective of the later other significant sites in the Pingle, Xialjian and Poxin expedition was to assist local government officials and drainage area. Also preliminary reconnaissance was also the Karst Institute to achieve national “geopark” carried out in Bama county to consider the cave potential (geological park) status for Fengshan County. The in the Haolong area. successful outcome of their application to Beijing was undoubtedly much more robust and detailed than would The China Caves Project is the product of an ongoing otherwise have been the case as a result of highly successful relationship between British cavers the expedition’s efforts. Equally importantly, the and the Institute of Karst Geology in Guilin, and has expeditions have raised awareness in Chinese official resulted in numerous joint Sino-British expeditions over circles of the damage and destruction done to caves in more than 20 years to these magnificent karst areas of the region from continuing attempts to extract southern China. speleothems for sale abroad. Debate on this issue has been heightened by our findings, and there is now a much The first of the 2004 expeditions successfully explored greater understanding of the economic benefits of and surveyed a large number of caves in the thick karst conserving cave environments for the purposes of deposits of Tian’e County, some of significant depth. tourism and scientific research. These include Wei Dong south-east of Tian’e town, the San Gui Shui Tiankeng further south, and further south still, Jiang Jia Tao which was the deepest cave found by the expedition with an entrance shaft of 180m. Interesting and complex vadose and phreatic caves were also found along the thin swathes of limestone to the south-east of Tian’e town. The team also explored a number of caves near Fengshan town, and then moved south to discover the massive cave passages of the Jiang Zhou Cave System.
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