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Surgència del Molinet

Surgència del Molinet

Important surgència temporal a Capafonts

Capafonts • Baix Camp28m4m

Temporary spring in Capafonts, with a small gallery of 28 metres and 3.6 metres of vertical drop, known since ancient times and surveyed in 1979.

Characteristics

Location

The cave is located in a left hydrographic branch of the barranc de la Tarrascona. Along the TV-7041 road towards Capafonts, at kilometre 21.225 on the left a track leaves that climbs up to the collada de les Hortasses; the last 250 metres of this track are not advisable for vehicles. At the col it meets the path that leads from Capafonts to la Foradada. Following this path, a left-hand turn-off is soon found that leads in a few minutes to the mouth of the spring.

Mapa

Entrances

Always verify coordinates and access conditions before setting out.

  1. Molinet, Surgència del

    Elevation: 802 m

    41.290805, 1.041440
    UTM 31T (ETRS89) 336004 4572890
Download all entrances as GPX

Photos

Surgència del Molinet - Photo, Capafonts, Baix CampView image
Click to enlarge

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

Image 1 of 4

Description

Morphology

At the base of a small cliff where there is a pile of blocks, there is a small descending mouth with the floor occupied by blocks that, after about 5 metres, leads to a wider gallery about 12 metres long and a little more than one metre high, with a very flat ceiling and a floor with only small rubble. On reaching the end we can stand up, where we see an accumulation of larger blocks and from where a narrow gallery emerges in an E direction that is choked. The vertical drop is 3.6 metres with a route of 28 metres.

Hydrology

The cave constitutes an important example of an intermittent spring. Although it seems clear that the catchment basin would be the plana dels Motllats, its operating regime is not sufficiently studied, with little data available. In one of the emissions it has been verified how that large flow of water dried up in less than a week, leaving only water accumulated in the main gallery.

On 7/12/14 the water temperature was 9.5º C while the ambient was 5.5ºC at 5 metres from the entrance on a cold day with outside temperatures of just over one degree.

History

Known since ancient times in Capafonts. At the end of the nineteen-sixties of the last century, members of the AAEEMI de Valls had already reported extensively on the spring that poured out large quantities of water after a storm of llevantades, indicating that its name came from the fact that the force of the water when it gushed made a large stone move that seemed like a millstone turning.

In 1979 the Espeleo Club de Salou surveyed it.

Bio

Coleoptera: Troglocharinus orcinus 6-8-2015 (new location).

Carabids: Duvalius berthae.

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Bibliography

  1. Borràs, J.; Miñarro, J.M.; Talavera, F.(1984).-”el baix camp, el priorat i la ribera d'ebre” Catàleg Espeleològic de Catalunya (Vol.7):1-283. Ed Políglota. Barcelona.
  • Totes les dades, coordenades topografia i fotografies ens han estat facilitades per Joan Pallise (SIS-CET)

Source: Espeleoindex (espeleoindex.com), modified. CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/