Madagascar 1992

Expedition to the karst of Namoroka and Narinda

This selection of homepages is based on an article in the International Caver, No. 6, which can be found in the references.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Reserve Naturelle de Namoroka
  3. Narinda
  4. Conclusions
  5. References

Introduction

Fifteen of the sixteen malagasy caves with a development of more than 1 km are situated in the karst massive of Ankarana in the very North of Madagascar, which was visited by several expeditions of French and british cavers since 1980. Four of these caves have a length of more than 10 km, and the longest one, Ambatoharanana, is 18.1 km long.

Only one cave of considerably length has been surveyed outside the Ankarana area: Anjohiandranoboka (Grotte de Andranoboka, todoy known as Anjohibe only), with a length of 5.3 km, which is situated in the karst area of Narinda, NE of the town of Majunga (De Saint Ours 1959). Hoping to make new discoveries in this area, the Höhlen- und Karstforscher group of North-Rhine has chosen this area for a short speleological excursion in June 1991.

The main result of this excursion was the survey of the well dimensioned Anjohikely cave, situated 2 km south of Anjohibe, with two unconnected branches of 1.2 and 0.8 km length (Laumanns et al. 1991). This enjoyable start was combined with the discovery of Grotte Albert, a cave in quarzite situated in the highlands of Mount Ibity in an altitude of 1900 m asl and therefore currently the highest cave in Madagascar.

All this made us hungry to return to Madagascar with more cavers, more time, big hopes, and new aims, like the investigation of the speleologically untouched pinnacle Karst of Namoroka ...

The following is a description of this expedition, which was carried out in July and August 1992.

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