On Saturday, 2 March 2023, the Dimnice Cave Association, with the support of the Municipality of Hrpelje-Kozina and the Interreg Karst-Carso II project, organised a lecture by Prof. Dr. Nadja Zupan Hajna at the Information Centre of the Beka Landscape Park on the recent discoveries made by the staff of the Postojna Institute for Karst Research of the Slovenian Karst Research Centre (ZRC SAZU) in the Dimnice Cave.
This year, it celebrates the 120th anniversary of the first descent and 110 years of tourism. In a packed hall, Edi Fabjan from the ORA Krasa & Brkinov presented the projects that include the cave as a point of the Karst-Carso Geopark, while Franc Malečkar, from the Koper Caving Society, presented the events marking these anniversaries, the first of which, the Open Day, was a great success. 400 people registered for the 50 free tickets. The speaker, also President of the International Union of Speleology (UIS), after presenting the general characteristics of karst areas and cave sediments, focused on the results of research into the types and ages of water-borne debris in the chimneys. They contain minerals derived from the breccia-type alternating layers of sandstone and lapis. Quartz is the most abundant, while chromite has only been found in the former cave of the Črnotiče quarry. Its age, determined by iron magnetisation, suggests that the waters of Brkini also flowed through the Karst rim almost two million years ago. Recent hydrological conditions show that the stream in the Dimnice Cave responds rapidly to rainfall, with the water level rising by one and a half metres. Therefore, the floods in the cave 13 years ago could be said to have been centennial, with a rise of almost 17 metres. It is also marked on the cave map of Ivan Andrej Perek, the first Slovenian professional speleologist. As part of the celebrations of the anniversary of the Dimnice Cave, an international children's painting extempore will be held there next month, the Slovenian premiere of the one-act play "Freud and the Caver" in August, and an exhibition in the Kozina library in September.
