Por Jo De Waele (Full Professor, Italian Institute of Speleology, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences - BIGEA, Geology Division, University of Bologna, Italy).

Caves are always depicted as rivers disappearing underground. Cave explorers are taught to “follow the rivers”, and “tracing the unground water flow”.

Underground rivers are the essence of caving. But is this always true? This seminar will show how caves and speleology are dealt with in the geological community. And, despite the fact that ideas in the cave science community have progressed a lot in the last 20 years, how little the different speleogenetic theories are known among geologists and cavers. Karst scientists are still seen as crazy people, having fun getting dirty in the mud, and karst and caves are still not being taken seriously enough. Cavers and cave scientists have to let the whole community (scientific and not) know about the importance of karst in many fields (practical and scientific). The International Year of Caves and Karst is only the beginning.

Transmissão em direto no canal de YouTube do cE3c.