Berliner Höhlenkundliche Berichte, Volume 51: Karst and Caves of Myanmar Expeditions to the Shan States 2011-2013

About this book

Language: English with trilingual abstract in English, German, and French

Until 2009 Myanmar was still one of the “blank spots” on the speleological world map. Since then the country has made remarkable progress with regard to access to foreigners and also in political liberalism. However, there is still restricted access to areas along the borders to China, Thailand, Laos and India. In 2009 an expedition team of the “Northern Lao–European Cave Project” visited the area of Moulmein, explored 14 caves and surveyed 12 of them, yielding 3,8 km in 5 days (Dreybrodt 2009; Laumanns 2010). This prepared the basis for a British expedition in 2010 to the Taunggyi/Hopong area, which explored several important caves. In the same year a standard country monograph in this publication series was released (Laumanns 2010), which summarised everything known on karst and caves in Myanmar up to 2010, including the British 2010 expedition, and even included many cave surveys that were previously unpublished. This compilation also strived to align erroneous locations, name transcription problems as well as double listings assigned to the same caves – all of which occurred in the literature.

This publication, similar in style and presentation with the afore-mentioned monography, continues the “Myanmar cave story”. It focuses on the Shan plateau and comprises the results of the latest expeditions from 2011-2013 (98 caves with a total of 16,6 km of mapped passages). Further findings will be the subject of another volume in this series.

Contents

Abstract / Zusammenfassung / Résumé     5

1.     Acknowledgements     5
2.     Introduction (by J. Dreybrodt & M. Laumanns)     7
3.     Geographical and geological settings (by Liz Price)     8
4.     History of cave exploration in Myanmar (by L. Price, M. Laumanns, J. Dreybrodt)     14
5.     Cave descriptions     16
5.1     General remarks     16
5.2     Caves of the Northern Shan State     17
5.2.1     Lashio Area     17
5.2.2     Kutkai Area     22
5.3     Caves of the Southern Shan State     23
5.3.1     Kalaw Area     25
5.3.2     Hopong Area     30
5.3.3     Pinlaung Area     40
5.3.4     Ywangan Area     56
5.3.5     Nyaungshwe Area     62
6.     Biospeleology of the Shan States, Myanmar (by Helmut Steiner)     71
7.     Conclusions     80
8.     References     80

Annex 1:     Caves explored 2010–2013 in Myanmar     
Annex 2:     Photo tables     
Annex 3:     Survey of Kyauk Khaung

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