About the caves
Cerovac caves are located on the northeastern slopes of Crnopac and above the south border of Gračačko field.
Gornja Cerovac cave
The length of the explored canals is 4035 meters, the overall depth is 192 meters and the overall altitude difference is 2202 meters. The length of the tourist path is 725 meters. The entrance is spacious (10 x 6 meters), it is at 671 meters of altitude and oriented to north. The entrance hall is approximately 30 meters long and extends towards south. It is followed by the main canal that then takes a sharp turn to the west. There are only two larger, sideline canals and several smaller ones. At 237 meters from the entrance, going from the main canal towards northeast, is the location of Gornja hall which is only 80 meters long but over 15 meters wide. There were many cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) bones found in the bear trench. The main canal extends further to west and the final 200 meters change the direction to northwest. At 300 meters the main canal opens up into the Great hall (Velika dvorana) and at 400 meters into the Hall of the paleolithic hunter (Dvorana paleolitskog lovca). Very significant paleoanthropological and paleolithic findings such as a human bone and bone spikes were found there alongside more cave bear bones.
In the bear trench, at about 60 meters from the main canal there is an entrance to a 100 meters deep vertical. Narrowings and spacious, vertical canals go along the vertical. At the bottom of the vertical is the lower platform of Gornja Cerovac caves. The length of the so-far explored parts is over 1500 meters. It is a network of canals of a general north-south course. The canals are rich in denudation (from the Latin denudare which means to bare; used in geomorphology as a collective term for all destructive morphological processes) or speleogenic and cave deposits or speleothem forms. In some of these canals there are other animals remains, most likely from cave bears, but these findings yet remain to be researched. The southernmost parts of the lower platform are very close to the surface on a slope beneath the entrance to Donja Cerovac cave.
Donja Cerovac cave
The length of the currently known and topographically recorded canals in Donja Cerovac cave is 4058 meters, the overall depth of the cave is 68 meters and the overall altitude difference is 97 meters. The length of the tourist path is 608 meters. The entrance to this cave is at 624 meters of altitude, it is smaller than the entrance to Gornja cave but it is also oriented to north. From the entrance, the canal extends toward southeast and after 160 meters it takes a sharp turn to the west and, in the form of a spacious canal, goes on for about 750 meters. That canal is illuminated and adapted for tourist visits up to about 600 meters from the entrance and it goes on for about 50 meters more through a relatively narrower and partially expanded canal at the end of which is a vertical leap of 23 meters. The morphology of the cave after this leap is significantly different. This is where the cave is formed into a network of canals and halls and the main characteristic is the significantly larger dimensions of the area than in the tourist section. At about 850 meters, the length of the cave is divided into 2 sections. One section extends towards the northwest and contains the main finding site of cave bear remains, Bear hall and the large Mammoth hall. The second section extends towards the southwest and represents the main canal of the cave which is made up of the Great hall and the Cascade canal that ends in a narrow passage. Behind the passage, there is the Pepeonik canal that extends towards the southeast. Close to the end of this canal, towards the south, a narrow passage named Krtičin rov (Croatian for mole burrow) can be found followed by newly discovered, the southernmost parts of the cave. Many vertical canals, so called chimneys, were examined in a larger portion of the cave. The tallest is 80 meters high. Donja Cerovac cave is also filled with numerous speleothem formations such as stalactite, stalagmite, pillars, curtains, cascades, pisolites (cave pearls) and unusual, rare and eccentric speleothem.
