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40-579: New Athos or Akhali Atoni is a town in the Gudauta raion of Abkhazia situated some 22 km (14 mi) from Sukhumi by the shores of the Black Sea . The town was previously known under the names Nikopol, Acheisos, Anakopia, Nikopia, Nikofia, Nikopsis, Absara, and Psyrtskha. New Athos Cave is one of Abkhazia's tourist attractions. The excavations at the Anakopia Fortress which

80-399: A combination of chemical processes, erosion by water, tectonic forces, microorganisms, pressure, and atmospheric influences. Isotopic dating techniques can be applied to cave sediments, to determine the timescale of the geological events which formed and shaped present-day caves. It is estimated that a cave cannot be more than 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) vertically beneath the surface due to

120-417: A contrast between active and relict: active caves have water flowing through them; relict caves do not, though water may be retained in them. Types of active caves include inflow caves ("into which a stream sinks"), outflow caves ("from which a stream emerges"), and through caves ("traversed by a stream"). Solutional caves or karst caves are the most frequently occurring caves. Such caves form in rock that

160-558: A hollow tube remains. Such caves can be found in the Canary Islands , Jeju-do , the basaltic plains of Eastern Idaho , and in other places. Kazumura Cave near Hilo , Hawaii is a remarkably long and deep lava tube; it is 65.6 km long (40.8 mi). Lava caves include but are not limited to lava tubes. Other caves formed through volcanic activity include rifts, lava molds, open vertical conduits, inflationary, blisters, among others. Sea caves are found along coasts around

200-563: A king in the late 8th century. Later, the capital was moved to Kutaisi . Anakopia was ceded to Byzantine Empire by Demetre in 1033 but was retaken by Georgians in 1072 among the other territories Georgia gained as a result of the Empire's defeat at Manzikert at the hands of Seljuks . According to a tradition Simon the Zealot died in Abkhazia having come there on a missionary trip and

240-420: A modern understanding of acoustics. Archaeologists have uncovered relationships between paintings of dots and lines, in specific areas of resonance, within the caves of Spain and France, as well as instruments depicting paleolithic motifs, indicators of musical events and rituals. Clusters of paintings were often found in areas with notable acoustics, sometimes even replicating the sounds of the animals depicted on

280-508: A pale or white coloration), a loss of eyes (or at least of optical functionality), an elongation of appendages, and an enhancement of other senses (such as the ability to sense vibrations in water). Aquatic troglobites (or stygobites), such as the endangered Alabama cave shrimp , live in bodies of water found in caves and get nutrients from detritus washed into their caves and from the feces of bats and other cave inhabitants. Other aquatic troglobites include cave fish, and cave salamanders such as

320-558: A population of 36,775: The district's main settlements are: On 20 September 2013, Gudauta District signed a Friendship and Partnership Agreement with Kstovsky District . Cave A cave or cavern is a natural void under the Earth 's surface . Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance underground (such as rock shelters ). Caves which extend further underground than

360-453: A range of early human species dating back to between three and one million years ago, including Australopithecus africanus , Australopithecus sediba and Paranthropus robustus . However, it is not generally thought that these early humans were living in the caves, but that they were brought into the caves by carnivores that had killed them. The first early hominid ever found in Africa,

400-519: A solutional cave that are below the water table or the local level of the groundwater will be flooded. Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico and nearby Carlsbad Cavern are now believed to be examples of another type of solutional cave. They were formed by H 2 S ( hydrogen sulfide ) gas rising from below, where reservoirs of oil give off sulfurous fumes. This gas mixes with groundwater and forms H 2 SO 4 ( sulfuric acid ). The acid then dissolves

440-580: A storage facility, tourist base, hospital and museum. Its return to the Orthodox Church began in 1994, after the end of the war in Abkhazia . The scenic setting of the New Athos monastery by the sea has made it a popular destination with Russian tourists visiting Abkhazia. An older church of St. Simon the Canaanite , dated to the 9th-10th century and reconstructed in the 1880s, is located near

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480-528: Is alleged to have signed a decree on 11 August 2006, handing over two most valuable plots of coastal land to two individuals, which would have required authorisation by the Cabinet of Ministers. Following the May 2014 Revolution and the election of Raul Khajimba as President, on 23 September 2014 he replaced Malia as Administration Head with Ruslan Ladaria . At the time of the 2011 Census, Gudauta District had

520-608: Is located at the edge of the town showed that it functioned in the 5–12 centuries CE, though some archeologists date the construction of the defences to 7th century. Anakopia is associated with the fortress of Tracheia mentioned by Prokopius . Anakopia was the capital of the Abkhazian princedom in the orbit of the Byzantine Empire and then of the Abkhazian Kingdom after the archon Leon II declared himself

560-482: Is soluble; most occur in limestone , but they can also form in other rocks including chalk , dolomite , marble , salt, and gypsum . Except for salt caves , solutional caves result when rock is dissolved by natural acid in groundwater that seeps through bedding planes , faults , joints, and comparable features. Over time cracks enlarge to become caves and cave systems. The largest and most abundant solutional caves are located in limestone. Limestone dissolves under

600-631: The Denisovans in southern Siberia. In southern Africa, early modern humans regularly used sea caves as shelter starting about 180,000 years ago when they learned to exploit the sea for the first time. The oldest known site is PP13B at Pinnacle Point . This may have allowed rapid expansion of humans out of Africa and colonization of areas of the world such as Australia by 60–50,000 years ago. Throughout southern Africa, Australia, and Europe, early modern humans used caves and rock shelters as sites for rock art, such as those at Giant's Castle . Caves such as

640-783: The Madagascar dry deciduous forests and parts of Brazil contain many documented caves. As the world's expanses of soluble bedrock are researched by cavers, the distribution of documented caves is likely to shift. For example, China, despite containing around half the world's exposed limestone—more than 1,000,000 square kilometres (390,000 sq mi)—has relatively few documented caves. Cave-inhabiting animals are often categorized as troglobites (cave-limited species), troglophiles (species that can live their entire lives in caves, but also occur in other environments), trogloxenes (species that use caves, but cannot complete their life cycle fully in caves) and accidentals (animals not in one of

680-554: The Neo-Byzantine New Athos Monastery , dedicated to St. Simon the Canaanite , was constructed there in the 1880s with funds provided by Tsar Alexander III of Russia . Eventually Russian monks were permitted to stay in the "old" Athos, and the New Athos monastery had much less occupancy than anticipated. In 1924, during the Soviet persecution of religion, the monastery was closed. It was later used as

720-605: The Taung Child in 1924, was also thought for many years to come from a cave, where it had been deposited after being predated on by an eagle. However, this is now debated (Hopley et al., 2013; Am. J. Phys. Anthrop.). Caves do form in the dolomite of the Ghaap Plateau, including the Early, Middle and Later Stone Age site of Wonderwerk Cave ; however, the caves that form along the escarpment's edge, like that hypothesised for

760-536: The olm and the Texas blind salamander . Cave insects such as Oligaphorura (formerly Archaphorura) schoetti are troglophiles, reaching 1.7 millimetres (0.067 in) in length. They have extensive distribution and have been studied fairly widely. Most specimens are female, but a male specimen was collected from St Cuthberts Swallet in 1969. Bats , such as the gray bat and Mexican free-tailed bat , are trogloxenes and are often found in caves; they forage outside of

800-456: The very slow flow of the ice, which tends to collapse the caves again. Glacier caves are sometimes misidentified as " ice caves ", though this latter term is properly reserved for bedrock caves that contain year-round ice formations. Fracture caves are formed when layers of more soluble minerals, such as gypsum, dissolve out from between layers of less soluble rock. These rocks fracture and collapse in blocks of stone. Talus caves are formed by

840-518: The yaodong in China were used for shelter; other caves were used for burials (such as rock-cut tombs ), or as religious sites (such as Buddhist caves ). Among the known sacred caves are China's Cave of a Thousand Buddhas and the sacred caves of Crete . Paleolithic cave paintings have been found throughout the world dating from 64,800 years old for non-figurative art and 43,900 years old for figurative art. The importance of sound in caves predates

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880-698: The Head of Gudauta's Administration by Daur Vozba. During the February 2011 assembly elections , Daur Vozba failed to be re-elected by a margin of 92 votes. Sergei Bagapsh appointed Valeri Malia as his successor on 23 February. On 17 February, during its first session, the new Gudauta District assembly elected Roman Bazba its chairman, with 22 out of 29 votes, and Fyodor Sakania its Deputy Chairman. On 1 November 2011, Abkhazia's Prosecutor General announced that he had initiated criminal proceedings against former Administration Head Daur Vozba, for abuse of power. Vozba

920-780: The Taung Child, are formed within a secondary limestone deposit called tufa . There is numerous evidence for other early human species inhabiting caves from at least one million years ago in different parts of the world, including Homo erectus in China at Zhoukoudian , Homo rhodesiensis in South Africa at the Cave of Hearths ( Makapansgat ), Homo neanderthalensis and Homo heidelbergensis in Europe at Archaeological Site of Atapuerca , Homo floresiensis in Indonesia, and

960-552: The action of rainwater and groundwater charged with H 2 CO 3 ( carbonic acid ) and naturally occurring organic acids . The dissolution process produces a distinctive landform known as karst , characterized by sinkholes and underground drainage. Limestone caves are often adorned with calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation . These include flowstones , stalactites , stalagmites , helictites , soda straws and columns. These secondary mineral deposits in caves are called speleothems . The portions of

1000-586: The caves utilized for reverberation, but for the dampening qualities of their abnormal faces as well. The irregularities in the walls of the Cumberland Caverns diffuse sounds bouncing off the walls and give the space an almost recording studio-like quality. During the 20th century musicians began to explore the possibility of using caves as locations as clubs and concert halls, including the likes of Dinah Shore , Roy Acuff , and Benny Goodman . Unlike today, these early performances were typically held in

1040-565: The caves. Some species of cave crickets are classified as trogloxenes, because they roost in caves by day and forage above ground at night. Because of the fragility of cave ecosystems, and the fact that cave regions tend to be isolated from one another, caves harbor a number of endangered species, such as the Tooth cave spider , liphistius trapdoor spider , and the gray bat. Caves are visited by many surface-living animals, including humans. These are usually relatively short-lived incursions, due to

1080-562: The lack of light and sustenance. Cave entrances often have typical florae. For instance, in the eastern temperate United States, cave entrances are most frequently (and often densely) populated by the bulblet fern, Cystopteris bulbifera . People have made use of caves throughout history. The earliest human fossils found in caves come from a series of caves near Krugersdorp and Mokopane in South Africa. The cave sites of Sterkfontein , Swartkrans , Kromdraai B, Drimolen , Malapa , Cooper's D, Gladysvale, Gondolin and Makapansgat have yielded

1120-413: The limestone from below, rather than from above, by acidic water percolating from the surface. Caves formed at the same time as the surrounding rock are called primary caves . Lava tubes are formed through volcanic activity and are the most common primary caves. As lava flows downhill, its surface cools and solidifies. Hot liquid lava continues to flow under that crust, and if most of it flows out,

1160-781: The monastery which still owns it. New Athos cave is a karst cave in the Iverian Mountain , few km far from the town. Since 1975 it is served by the New Athos Cave Railway . New Athos is twinned with: Gudauta District Lev Shamba was reappointed as Administration Head on 10 May 2001 following the March 2001 local elections. On 16 June 2003, President Ardzinba assented to Shamba's request for dismissal and replaced him with First Deputy Minister for Education Beslan Dbar . On 29 March 2005, newly elected President Sergei Bagapsh replaced Beslan Dbar as

1200-476: The opening is wide are called endogene caves . Speleology is the science of exploration and study of all aspects of caves and the cave environment. Visiting or exploring caves for recreation may be called caving , potholing , or spelunking . The formation and development of caves is known as speleogenesis ; it can occur over the course of millions of years. Caves can range widely in size, and are formed by various geological processes. These may involve

1240-465: The openings among large boulders that have fallen down into a random heap, often at the bases of cliffs. These unstable deposits are called talus or scree , and may be subject to frequent rockfalls and landslides . Anchialine caves are caves, usually coastal, containing a mixture of freshwater and saline water (usually sea water). They occur in many parts of the world, and often contain highly specialized and endemic fauna. Caves are found throughout

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1280-549: The pressure of overlying rocks. This does not, however, impose a maximum depth for a cave which is measured from its highest entrance to its lowest point, as the amount of rock above the lowest point is dependent on the topography of the landscape above it. For karst caves the maximum depth is determined on the basis of the lower limit of karst forming processes, coinciding with the base of the soluble carbonate rocks. Most caves are formed in limestone by dissolution . Caves can be classified in various other ways as well, including

1320-428: The previous categories). Some authors use separate terminology for aquatic forms (for example, stygobites , stygophiles , and stygoxenes ). Of these animals, the troglobites are perhaps the most unusual organisms. Troglobitic species often show a number of characteristics, termed troglomorphic, associated with their adaptation to subterranean life. These characteristics may include a loss of pigment (often resulting in

1360-515: The town, on the Psyrtskha stream. New Athos has a small hydroelectric power station and artificial lake on the Psyrtskha river, close to the old Church of St. Simon the Canaanite . The station was built by the monks of the monastery between 1892 and 1903 and repaired in 1922. It remained broken for over forty years before being repaired again – it was re-opened on 4 June 2012. It produces an estimated 100 kW "per hour [ sic ]" for

1400-462: The walls. The human voice was also theorized to be used as an echolocation device to navigate darker areas of the caves where torches were less useful. Dots of red ochre are often found in spaces with the highest resonance, where the production of paintings was too difficult. Caves continue to provide usage for modern-day explorers of acoustics. Today Cumberland Caverns provides one of the best examples for modern musical usages of caves. Not only are

1440-417: The water, such as a fault or joint. A subtype of the erosional cave is the wind or aeolian cave, carved by wind-born sediments. Many caves formed initially by solutional processes often undergo a subsequent phase of erosional or vadose enlargement where active streams or rivers pass through them. Glacier caves are formed by melting ice and flowing water within and under glaciers. The cavities are influenced by

1480-667: The world, although the distribution of documented cave system is heavily skewed towards those countries where caving has been popular for many years (such as France, Italy, Australia, the UK, the United States, etc.). As a result, explored caves are found widely in Europe, Asia, North America and Oceania, but are sparse in South America, Africa, and Antarctica. This is a rough generalization, as large expanses of North America and Asia contain no documented caves, whereas areas such as

1520-791: The world. A special case is littoral caves, which are formed by wave action in zones of weakness in sea cliffs. Often these weaknesses are faults, but they may also be dykes or bedding-plane contacts. Some wave-cut caves are now above sea level because of later uplift. Elsewhere, in places such as Thailand 's Phang Nga Bay , solutional caves have been flooded by the sea and are now subject to littoral erosion. Sea caves are generally around 5 to 50 metres (16 to 164 ft) in length, but may exceed 300 metres (980 ft). Corrasional or erosional caves are those that form entirely by erosion by flowing streams carrying rocks and other sediments. These can form in any type of rock, including hard rocks such as granite. Generally there must be some zone of weakness to guide

1560-622: Was appointed Minister for Agriculture and released as Mayor of New Athos. On 19 May, Feliks Dautia was appointed his successor. In 1874 Russian monks from the overcrowded Rossikon Monastery on Mount Athos arrived to the Caucasus in order to find a place for possible resettlement. They feared that the Ottoman Empire would oust the Russians from Athos after the outbreak of the impending Russo-Turkish War . They selected Psyrtskha, and

1600-529: Was buried in Nicopsis . His remains were transferred to Anakopia in the 14–15 centuries. Located between the Black Sea and the Iverian Mountain , New Athos is 17 km far from Gudauta , 22 from Sukhumi and 84 from the Russian borders at Vesyoloye , a village near the city of Sochi . Vitali Smyr was reappointed as Mayor on 10 May 2001 following the March 2001 local elections. On 8 May 2003, Smyr

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