Iskar Gorge and Ledenika cave - a brief overview

The Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic sequences in the Svoge, West Balkan and Fore-Balkan units (Western Bulgaria) are exposed in eight points. Most of the points are within the area of the Iskar Gorge. At point 1, SE of the village of Redina on the road to Svoge, the rocks of the Late Carboniferous Svoge Formation can be observed – terrigenous sediments of alluvial-limnic character with preserved megaflora. Triassic and Jurassic sequences are traced in the area of point 2 near the village of Zasele. Point 3 is in Triassic sediments and provides a view from the east of the Upper Carboniferous diorites of the Petrohan intrusion. Karst processes are developed in some sections of the Iskar Gorge and caves of different sizes can be seen. One of them is the Temnata Dupka Cave (point 4), which is formed in the Middle Triassic rocks of the Iskar Carbonate Group. In the area of the village of Cherepish (point 5), the lower part of the Lower Cretaceous Vratsa Urgonian Group (Cherepish Formation) is exposed. The upper level of the Vratsa Urgonian Group can be traced in the next point 6, where the geological phenomenon Ritlite (Lyutibrod Formation) is situated. In the area of the village of Chelopek (point 7), a continuous section between the Cretaceous and Paleogene is observed. Southwest of Vratsa, at point 8, the Ledenika Cave is revealed, located in the Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous carbonate sediments of the Gintsi Formation.