Institutul de Speologie "Emil Racoviţă"

A team of international researchers, led by our colleagues from the “Emil Racoviță” Institute of Speleology and University of Bucharest have recently published an interesting study in the prestigious journal Sedimentary Geology, opening a window into the turbulent climatic past of the Carpathian region. By investigating the depths of two of Romania's most famous caves, Muierilor Cave (Parâng Mountains) and Urșilor Cave (Bihor Mountains), scientists have successfully decoded the "history written in mud and gravel" regarding extreme climatic events that occurred tens of thousands of years ago.
Why are caves so important for climatologists? Unlike the Earth's surface, where erosion, wind, and rain erase the traces of the past, caves act as protected natural storehouses. The sediments deposited here, what geologists sometimes call "missing stratigraphy", preserve intact evidence of what the climate was like and which animals roamed the area, evidence that has long since vanished from the surface.
The study focused on a period known as MIS 3-2 (roughly between 57,000 and 11,700 years ago), an era marked by violent climatic oscillations and abrupt shifts from extreme cold to rapid warming.
Researchers identified three major hydrological events that occurred simultaneously in both caves, despite them being located in different mountain ranges. These took place approximately 46,000, 34,500, and 29,000 years ago.
Analysis of gravel shapes and grain sizes proved that the caves were hit by high-magnitude "flash floods." These surges were powerful enough to sweep away and redeposit chaotic mixtures of prehistoric animal remains, including the cave bear, cave lion, and wolf.
These floods were not random; they were triggered by large-scale climatic variations, likely fueled by heavy rainfall or the rapid melting of snow and small glaciers that once existed on the Carpathian peaks.
Understanding how our region reacted to abrupt climate changes in the past is essential for anticipating extreme phenomena in the future. The study demonstrates that Romania's caves are not just spectacular tourist attractions, but invaluable scientific archives that help us assemble the complex puzzle of Earth's history.

Redirecting

We are thrilled to be part of the Romanian Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2026!

🔬Excited to share our new paper published in Acarologia by our colleagues Ioana Nae, Augustin Nae and Raluca Ioana Bancila! New data on Family Damaidae from scree habitats, a type of MSS (mesovoid shallow substratum) from the Romanian Carpathians offers new data in species distribution and the potential that this type of subterranean environment has for future studies.
Check it out:

Damaeid mite species (Acari, Oribatida, Damaeidae) and their occurrence in subterranean habitats. A case study from the Romanian Carpathians Mountain scree habitats, part of the Mesovoid Shallow Substratum (MSS), represent a transitional zone between the surface and the deep underground environment. They consist of a network of small cracks and voids, characterized by distinct environmental conditions, the presence of troglobitic species...

🌍 Karst Science Days Symposium 2026 – 4th Edition

We are delighted to invite you to Bucharest, Romania for the 4th edition of the Karst Science Days Symposium (KSD2026) and its associated field trip!

📅 Symposium: November 13, 2026
📍 Location: Bucharest, Romania (on-site & online participation available)

The symposium will highlight the scientific contributions of outstanding students working in karst environments. We warmly welcome participants in the final two years of undergraduate studies, master’s students, and doctoral candidates.

🧭 Field Trip:
Following the symposium, participants are invited to join a field excursion to Cloșani and the Cerna Valley (SW Romania) from November 14–18, 2026.

🔬 Program Themes
• Karstology
• Subsurface Biology
• Other karst-related topics are also welcome

We are also excited to host a special Citizen Science poster session, where contributors outside mainstream academia can showcase their work.

🎤 Presentation Formats
• 15-minute oral presentations
• Poster presentations (Citizen Science session)

📖 Publication Opportunity
Accepted oral presentations will be published as Conference Papers in the Karst Science Days Symposium Proceedings (ISSN 2972-1261), with DOI identifiers, following review by the Scientific Committee.

🎓 Travel Support
Free accommodation for November 12–13 will be offered to three presenters traveling from abroad, awarded to the first three accepted conference papers after peer review.

💰 No registration fee – to encourage participation from young researchers.

📝 Registration
Submit your article or poster abstract and complete the registration form by September 14, 2026.
Public participants are kindly asked to register by November 7, 2026.

🔗 More information and registration: www.ksd.iser.ro

We look forward to welcoming you to KSD2026 in Bucharest!

Vă invităm să ascultați un interviu cuprinzător în cadrul emisiunii „Idei în nocturnă”, realizată de Corina Negrea la Radio România Cultural. Invitații emisiunii, colegul nostru Dr. Virgil Drăgușin și Prof Dr. Bogdan Onac (University of South Florida, SUA; Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca), au dezvăluit culisele muncii laborioase din spatele unui studiu paleoclimatic de importanță europeană și nu numai.
Recent, acest studiu, intitulat „Winter hydroclimate contrasts between southern and northern Europe at ∼ 5.2 ka” și semnat de Virgil Drăgușin, Vasile Ersek, Dominik Fleitmann, Monica Ioniță și Bogdan P. Onac, a fost onorat cu prestigiosul Premiu „Ștefan Hepites” al Academiei Române. Această distincție confirmă valoarea muncii cercetătorilor Institutului de Speologie „Emil Racoviță” și succesul colaborărilor noastre internaționale de top.

Cum se citește istoria climei într-o stalagmită. Peștera Urșilor și memoria climatică a continentului Cum putem afla cm era clima Europei în urmă cu mii de ani, înainte de stații meteo, sateliți sau înregistrări scrise? Răspunsul vine dintr-un

Here’s the next segment from the episode dedicated to Ion from Anina, the oldest definite early modern human specimen in Europe.

Istorii ascunse: România - leagănul primilor europeni | a doua parte (@TVR1) Nu a mai văzut nimeni vreodată imagini și nici nu s-a mai povestit la televiziune despre Ion de la Anina, unul dintre cei mai vechi oameni moderni fosili des...

Istorii ascunse: România - leagănul primilor europeni | prima parte (@TVR1) Nu a mai văzut nimeni vreodată imagini și nici nu s-a mai povestit la televiziune despre Ion de la Anina, unul dintre cei mai vechi oameni moderni fosili des...

We are very proud to announce that our colleagues have received the “Ștefan Hepites” Award from the Romanian Academy for their outstanding research:
“Winter hydroclimate contrasts between southern and northern Europe at ~5.2 ka.”

A big thank you to the Section of Geonomic Sciences for this recognition.

👏 Congratulations to the authors: Virgil Drăgușin, Vasile Ersek, Dominik Fleitmann, Monica Ioniță, and Bogdan P. Onac!
Amazing work and well-deserved!

A new study has been published by our colleagues ― Dr. Ioana Meleg (leading author), Dr. Marius Robu and Dr. Marius Vlaicu ― as part of an international team, with reputed scientists, in the prestigious journal iScience, a Cell Press Journal.
Our study, “Ancient biomolecules suggest a learned foraging strategy in extinct cave bears” can be downloaded here (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113920).
The paper focuses on Late Pleistocene cave bears from the Romanian Carpathians. Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen reveals substantial lifetime variation in food plant preferences among individuals. We find that bears with similar diets do not cluster according to their population structure, s*x, time period, climatic conditions, or location. This disconnect suggests that diet preferences in cave bears are not genetically inherited, and instead that individuals adapted their diets based on foraging experience.
For more details, read the full publication.
Cheers!

Karst Science Days are officially ON! 🤩

RE-CONNECT project is now online!

Dear friends of karst and fossils,
We’re excited to share that our journey with the Re-Connect project has officially begun and so has our new website! This platform will serve as a central hub for sharing updates, research insights, and resources about our ongoing work.
Re-Connect brings together researchers from Romania and the Republic of Moldova, joining expertise across borders to fill an important gap in Europe’s palaeoecological knowledge.
This project is supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-IV-PCB-ROMD-2024-0067.

Re-Connect project has officially begun We’re excited to share that our journey with the Re-Connect project has officially begun and so has our new website! This platform will serve as a central hub for sharing updates, research insights, and resources about our ongoing work.At its core, Re-Connect aims to shed new light on one of the k...