Ice Caves in Spain

In Spain there are at least 156 ice caves inventoried in the Pyrenees, Cantabrian Mountains, and Teide. In the Pyrenees there are ice caves in at least seven different massifs and in the Cantabrian Mountains are concentrated mainly in the Picos de Europa. In eight ice caves there have been applied techniques such as endoclimatic survey, geochronology, CCC analysis, mapping, ice structure, mass balances, TLS surveys, orthothermography and GPR surveys from the last 8 years. The ice volume has a significant interannual variation together with a regressive trend during the last decades, and the ice has ages ranging from centuries to a few millennia. In Spain Ice there are all kinds of possible ice caves, from the static to the dynamic, with metamorphic and congelation ice. Due to their risk of disappearance in the short medium term, it is very important to understand the ice cave systems and their past dynamics.