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My buddy Dave Scheer in Germany translated the following article from the local newspaper about Hasenmayer. ---------- X-Sun-Data-Type: default X-Sun-Data-Description: default X-Sun-Data-Name: Blautopf X-Sun-Content-Lines: 94 The Blautopf is a cave system in the Karst plane of the Schwabish Alps in the vicinity of Ulm Germany. These mountains are a front range for the Tyrolian Alps which lie approximatly 100 km further south. The cave system was formed in the typical manner by solution etching but with the added compliction that the karst was being curved by the intrusion of the Alps late in the formation. This resulted in a cave system that has it's deepest point very near the entrance and then it has large excursions in depth until at about 1300 m ( 3900 ft) the system emerges into a semi-dry area called the Moerike Dom (Cathederal). The system extends beyond this and theoreticlly should increase in depth again and may or may not extend for considerable distances. The exploration of this system has been carried out mostly by one man, Jochen Hasenmayer who has been a leading cave explorer in Europe. He did some of the pushes in Wookey Hole and Swildon in England and for many years held the depth record at Vacluse in southen France. He is often reticent to talk about what he does and therefore his accomplishments aren't recognised until years later when other teams begin to push the limits such as was the case in Vacluse. The Blautopf system itself presents some special problems as it lies in the village of Blaubeuren and hence entry is severely restricted. The water is around 9 deg C (50 deg F) and the flow ranges from what Little River is when the water level is low to a boiling 32 times that when the snow begins to melt in the Schwabish Alps. It can be penetrated with scooters or swimming when the flow is low but when the flow is above minumum, penetration is no longer possible due to the high flow rates encountered in the "Dueze' (The Nozzle) a restriction near the entrance. At flow rates that occur on especially high snow melt years the flow increases to a point that most of the village is flooded and has to be evacuated. Several years ago Jochen suffered a DCS hit when starting his decommpression schedule 20 m too shallow due to a faulty depth gauge. He lost the use of his legs but recovered when taken to a chamber. Due to another error in the chamber he was again paralysed, this time permenantly. He now dives using what can best be called a wheelchair for divers. He is wet from chest level down but the upper torso is enclosed in a plexiglas observation chamber that is equalised to the external pressure, hence it can not really be called a U-boat as the press wants to do. He still must go throught the normal decompression schedules but does have a dry area in which to eat or drink. He has claims of being able to maintain himself for up to 14 days. The power system is NiCad batteries with propelsion being provided by what looks like standard scooters attached to the support frame. All this work is done on his own time and with his own funds as he has a full time job with the local equivalent of our IRS. His main stated objective is to 'prove' that the Blautopf cave system was formed before the karst plain was curved and hence there must be an extensive system of filled caves under the Alps that would contain suficient hot water to provide household heating for a considerable period of time, on the order of centuries. This theory is not very widely accepted as many geolgists place the time of formation of the Blautopf after the Alps intruded and hence there is no downstream section and no basin of hot water. From the cave divers viewpoint the cave itself is beautiful in that the water is chemically coloured to an azure blue by copper compounds leached out of the limestone. The wet part of the cave is not noteworthy but the cave emerges into several dry areas, the largest which has been discovered to date is the Moerike Dom. This dry area is over 100 ft high by 300 ft long and has beautiful speleothems that are to date, seen and photgraphed only by Hasanmayer. The following article was in the Stuttgart newspaper describing his weekend dives: ******************************************************************* Stuttgarter Zeitung Suedwestumschau 5 March, 1996 Blaubeuren, Alb-Donau-Kreis. The crippled cave researcher Jochen Hasenmayer has shown new information after his latest dives in his Mini-U-Boat "Speleonaut" in the Blautopf near Blaubeuren. The 54 year old Pforzheimer said yesterday that he now 'knows' that the cave is older than 250 thousand years. 'The information lies on the table' says Hasenmayer. [Ed: this is folowed by a picture of what would appear to be a stream bed formed during a dry period in the system thus indicating that the cave has to be old enough to have gone through a dry period in history, hence older than the 250 k years stated by some geologists] We have exactly the photo we want to have, said the researcher. With this trip in his 2.5 m long, 72 cm wide U-boat into the biggest water source cave in middle Europe Hasenmayer has found a dry stream bed. The Blautopf is the source for the some of the blue of the nearby flowing 'Blue Danube' (Donau). It is also his entrance to the underwater world beneath the Alps. This photo taken at a 32 m depth shows a sharply defined stream bed etched in the bottom of the cave. The 54 year old spoke of a 'geological sensation'. This seems to prove that the cave is over 250 million years old and was formed before or during the intrusion of young Alps. This seems to prove his theory that there is a underground resorvoir of approximately 35,000 square kilometers of water which must be at a temperature of over 125 deg C (250 deg f) available under the Alps to provide heating for south Germany for over a century. Hasenmayer plans other excursions into the cave and by fall expects to prove unquestionably that the thermal resource exists. -- /********************************/ /* Jim Wei */ /* jwei@ci*.uf*.ed* */ /* Dept. of Computer Science */ /* University of Florida */ /********************************/
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