Cova de Muxí

Cavitat descendent inèdita molt a la vora de Sort (Pallars Sobirà)

Sort • Pallars Sobirà50m21m

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Cova de Muxí

Cavitat descendent inèdita molt a la vora de Sort (Pallars Sobirà)

Sort · Pallars Sobirà

Length: 50 m · Depth: 21 m

Updated record

https://espeleoworld.com/en/c/cova-de-muxi

Information can change. Always verify coordinates, access, weather, and cave conditions before setting out.

Topographic map of the main entrance — Main entrance · ICGC topographic map

An unpublished descending cavity very close to Sort (Pallars Sobirà), with a large circular mouth, a boulder ramp and galleries in karstified Devonian limestones.

Characteristics

Type: Cave
Municipality: Sort
Region: Pallars Sobirà
Unit: Alt Pallars
Length: 50 meters
Depth: 21 meters
Major Unit: Pirineu Axial
Lithology: Limestone
Last review: 2023-06-07

Location

Leaving Sort, heading north, there is Carrer del Dr. Carles Pou i Aleu, parallel to the C13 road; once we reach the raval de La Solana we must take Carrer Lluís Companys and immediately on the right we find the sign for the camí vell d'Olp, which must be followed for a few minutes until we turn off to the left at a striking flight of steps formed by rather high dry-stone walls. Beneath one of these walls and marked by a large solitary oak is the mouth of the cavity.

The cavity is located in karstified Devonian limestones. The lower thrust of the Orri unit places these limestones over Triassic materials (Guixera de Sort). The whole outcrops thanks to the Rialp-Sort tectonic window, which shows the structure of antiform stacks of the Alpine orogeny.

Entrances

Always verify coordinates and access conditions before setting out.

Muxí, Cova de
Elevation: 737 m
42.417027, 1.129334
UTM 31T (ETRS89) 346089 4697775
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Topographic

Cova de Muxí - Topography, Sort, Pallars Sobirà

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Espeleoindex · CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ · Image © its author.

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Espeleoindex · CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ · Image © its author.

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Description

Morphology

At the foot of a high dry-stone wall a large circular mouth opens beside an oak. A boulder ramp leads us to a point where a large block divides the ramp in two. The dimensions of the conduits are large and become narrower at the final part.

Speleothems

At the lowest point of the cavity is the only place where there is speleothem formation, in an environment dominated by the clastic process derived from the collapse that caused the surface mouth and the access ramp.

Progression

On the right, after a step, we reach a lower gallery with a descending tendency that leads us to the lowest point of the cavity. An ascending gallery between blocks and the wall of the conduit leads us to the point furthest from the entrance.

Other details

As for its formation, the deepest gallery is a conduit formed by dissolution of the Devonian limestones that was intercepted by a superficial clastic collapse (perhaps a collapse doline) that caused the boulder ramp.

History

Despite being referenced on the ICGC map and having been known in the area since long ago, it had remained unpublished in the speleological bibliography.

The first mention we have is by Lluís Marià Vidal, perhaps from the last decade of the 19th century, found in a handwritten paper incorporated into one of his field notebooks kept at the Museu Geològic del Seminari de Barcelona. Vidal calls it cova de l'Escaleta due to toponymic confusion, since that area, stepped by large dry-stone walls, is known as the Escalella.

On the ICGC map it appears as Cova de Moixí, but Mr. Rosendo Manrique, from Sort, indicates to us that the correct name should be Cova de Muxí, referring to Dr. Agustí Muxí Monroset, name of the owner of the site and former doctor of Sort, where there is a street in the town named after him.

The survey was carried out in the summer of 2022 by Josep Maria Cervelló.