Hidden Earth 2023

A new African Master Cave in the Kongo Central?

Lecture30 minute Lecture|Bernard Lips, Jean-Philippe Dégletagne & Michael Laumanns

Abstract

In the framework of the Geo-Resources for Development (GeoRes4Dev) project of the Belgian Africa Museum (Tervuren) a small team of African, Belgian, French and German cavers visited the Mbanza-Ngungu area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (province Kongo Central) in July 2023. Within only two weeks the expedition surveyed about 10 km of passages in 12 caves and made extensive biospeleological collections. Also, some 3D documentation equipment was tested. Only time constraints prevented the expedition to connect Grotte de Ngovo (about 6 km long) with Grotte de Ngungi (currently about 2.1 km long), which, if linked to a joint system, will rank among Africa’s top twenty caves.