Other reports 
Martin Knez 
THE 15 th SPELEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 
(LANDEK ZDROJ, POLAND, FEBRUARY 12-18,1996) 
The co-workers of the Karst Research Institute ZRC SAZU visited the 
jubilee 15th Speleological School in Poland. In a typical Sudetes town Landek 
Zdroj we passed professionally interesting week from 12 to 18 Febuary. 
The town Landek, as it is called by the natives for short, lies in a 
mountainous area of the western Silesia where the peaks reach the altitudes 
from 800 to 1200 m. The highest among them is Snieznik, 1425 m a.s.l. At 
its foot the most famous cave in Poland, the Bear Cave (Jaskinia Niedzwiedzia) 
is located. In the Snieznik area gneisses and marbles prevail and water incised 
deep valleys in them. The Bear Care developed in poorly recrystallized 
marbles. 
The Speleological School was organised, as all the previous, by researchers 
from the Geomorphology Department, Dniversity of Silesia. Headed by world 
famous karstologist and glaciologist Prof. M. Pulina Doc. A. Tyc took care for 
this week. The Scientific Protective Committee at the Bear Cave and the 
Provincial Found of Environmental Protection and Water Management of the 
Walbrych province cooperated at the organisation. 
The scientific Committee was represented by distinguished professors and 
researchers of karst and Arctic regions: A Jan, M. Pulina, J. Glazek, J. Jania, 
S. Kozlowski and A. Rožkowski of the Silesian University, of the Wroclaw 
and Poznan Universities and National Geological Institute, Warszawa. 
The organisers of the jubilee Speleological School tried to gather the 
highest possible number of experts related to speleology and karstology, and 
to glaciology from Poland and abroad. More than 50 representatives re-
sponded from Poland, Czech Republic, France, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraina and 
Slovenia, or in other words, from Bordeaux in the west to Irkutsk in the east. 
As usually, also this meeting included invited papers, papers of participants 
and exhibition of posters. During the meeting an excursion to the Polish finest 
cave, Bear Cave, was organised. 
Program of talks covered various topics, from applicative to entirely 
theoretical papers, from researches of lithosphere over GIS to various aspects 
of speleogenesis, datation of flowstone age by the TL, ESR, 14C, U/Th 
methods to Radon measurements in caves, researches of glaciers on Svalbards 
to tectonic grabens in Nigeria, from hunian impact on karst to protection of 
some karst areas. Each particular day was dedicated to a defined topic: karst 
hydrology, problematics of human impac::t on karst, speleogenesis, cave sedi-
ments, glaciology and regional problems and karst protection in Poland. 
There were about 30 papers altogether. Slovenia was represented by four 
researchers with the following titles: The initial development of Škocjanske 
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Acta carsologica, XXV (1996) 
jame within the area of collapse doline Velika Dolina (M. Knez); Collapse 
Cha1:1ber in Postojnska jama and its relation to geological structure 
(S. Sebela); Mineral composition of cave mechanical sediments and their 
origin (N. Zupan Rajna); The complete karst model (F. Šušteršič). 
All the lecturers placed great emphasis on fact that without understanding 
the karst law relation environment protection, safeguarding of water potentials 
and other measures are practically impossible. The papers showed the results 
and need for further development of science. 
The evenings were made agreable by slides and video-films. The beauties 
of Ural and caves in ice of polar regions of Svalbards still remain within our 
recollection. 
Our papers well represented Slovenia and I think that to attend the 15th 
Speleological School was not only interesting and agreable but also instructive. 
The organisers plan to publish the given papers in a special publication. 
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