Language: Bilingual in English and Portuguese with multilingual abstract in English, Italian, French, and German
During an European (Italian, Portuguese, German) speleological project 3,5 km of cave passages were explored in the Cheringoma plateau north of the port of Beira, Mozambique. The karst is developed in Eocene limestone.
The most significant findings were deep karst canyons of Quaternary age, partly with rock ceilings creating caves (e.g. Codzo River Cave, 942 m long) and an older generation of caves filled with sediments which were outwashed by surface water during recent times (e.g. Western Codzo Cave, 612 m long).
Many caves were used for digging bat guano during colonial times.
Summary, Sumário, Résumé, Zusammenfassung 5
Acknowledgements / Reconhecimentos 6
1 Introduction / Introdução 5
2 History of cave exploration in Mozambique / História da exploração das grutas em Moçambique 6
3 Speleological investigations / Investigações espeleológicas 6
3.1 General remarks / Observações gerais 7
3.2 Region north of Inhaminga / Região ao norte de Inhaminga 7
3.3 Surroundings of Codzo village / Arredores da aldeia do Codzo 8
3.4 Surroundings of Nhagutua village / Arredores da Aldeia Nhagutua 8
4 The karst systems of the Cheringoma Plateau, morphoestructural and hydrogeological note / Os sistemas de cársicos do planalto de Cheringoma,análise Morphostructural e Hydrogeologica 12
5 Biospeleological note on the Cheringoma Plateau / Nota de Biospeleological sobre o planalto de Cheringoma 30
6 Recommendations / Recomendações 30
Annex 1: Photo tables / Quadros de fotografia
Annex 2: Bibliography on karst and cave related publications to Mozambique / Bibliografia — publicações relativas ao modelado cársico e grutas existentes em Moçambique
Annex 3: Caves surveyed during the 1998 speleological project in the Cheringoma Plateau / Grutas exploradas durante o projecto espeleológico no planalto de Cheringoma em 1998
Annex 4: Classes of orientation of tectonic structures / Classes de orientação das estruturas tectonic
Annex 5: Structural orientation of Cheringoma karst cave systems / Orientação estrutural dos sistemas de caverna de cársico Cheringoma
Annex 6: Chemical parameters of water sampled in the Cheringoma Plateau (mg/l) / Parâmetros químicos de água provados no planalto de Cheringoma (mg/l)
Annex 7: Analysis of water samples from the Cheringoma Plateau / Análise das amostras de água do planalto de Cheringoma