Invitation letter from the 16th ICS 2013 President Pavel Bosak

Dear cavers and karst students,

It is big honor for me to invite you to participate on the 16th International Congress of Speleology 2013, which will be held in the Moravian Capital city of Brno. Organizers – the Czech Speleological Society and partners – selected the congress site very carefully taking many aspects into account. The City of Brno is the historical capital of the Moravian Country, one of three principal parts of the former Czech Kingdom. The city offers all advantages of the capital, but in acceptable dimensions of the city size. As the Czech trade fair centre, the Congress venue will offer all possible comfort not only for for the congress’ administrative, cultural, sporting, and other activities.

Historical Czech countries represent the cradle of speleology and karst science, at least in the area of the past Austrian–Hungarian Monarchy, but also worldwide in some aspects. Some people born in the Czech and Moravian countries, unfortunately known mostly only to historians of speleology, represent the fathers of speleology before Alfred Martel, which is especially true for Adolf Schmiedl (born in western Bohemia, village of Tři sekery) who was working in the territory of Slovenia where he started a real speleological survey of the karst in the mid–19th Century and Anton Hanke (born in northern Moravia in village of Bravantice) worked in one of imperial offices in Trieste and is known for his explorations of the Classical Karst; one of passage has his name in the well–known Skocjanske Caves, UNESCO World Heritage and Ramsar site. Wilhelm Puttik, born near Brno in village of Popůvky, was a forester also in Slovenia and is well–known for his explorations of subterranean rivers and successful attempts at water regulation in poljes (his catavothra are still functioning).

The scientific research of caves has the oldest tradition in the territory of our largest karst region – the Moravian Karst – and its southern part is situated directly in Brno City. Names such as Johannes Anton Nagel, Heinrich (Jindřich) Wankel, Karel Absolon (the first regional biospeleological research in the Dinaric Karst), Jiří Viktor Daneš (pioneered studies of tropical karst in southeast Asia), Josef Kunský (the first description of thermomineral – hydrothermal – karst in the world literature from the Zbrašov Aragonite Caves in northern–central Moravia), and Vladimír Panoš are known worldwide to students of caves and karst. This historical tradition represents a pledge of excellence for us, the 2013 ICS organizers.

We will also be seen through the memory of the 6th ICS held in 1973 in city of Olomouc, now nearly 40 years ago. This ICS was held in different socio–economic circumstances and was the first ICS behind the Iron Curtain, the result of the Cold War after 1948. Many of you who were there will remember the difficulties you had to face during your arrival to the former Czechoslovakia; some of us also remember the organizational difficulties during the 1973 Congress. Those problems no longer exist.

We will do our best to organize the best ICS in history. For that we need your cooperation and especially your personal participation. We will try to prepare good Congress social, cultural and culinary programs, as well as interesting pre– and post–Congress and Congress excursions on which we have been collaborating with colleagues from adjacent countries (Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland).

The Czech Republic is a place with a variety of karst regions (although rather small in their extent), different kinds of caves, unique sandstone landscapes with sandstone pseudokarst in geological formations of different ages, other pseudokarst regions and forms (in Proterozoic to Quaternary formations), and historical underground cavities (e.g., old mines, military objects, cellars of different kinds used for variable purposes). We will offer trips to some of most important such features. The Czech Republic is a place with innumerable historical and cultural monuments, a number of them inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. We will also offer trips to some of these features during the Congress–related excursions.

It is the reason to join us in Brno 2013!

See you all in Brno 2013!

Many thanks for your willing cooperation and participation, and welcome

Pavel Bosak
the 16th ICS 2013 President