Lajos Gaál, cave explorer

* August 10, 1953, Rimaszombat / caver (speleologist) ; ; Born on August 10, 1953 in Rimaszombat, he completed both primary and secondary school here. Already in his adolescence, he was keenly interested in caves, of which there was no shortage in the Gömör region. He founded a caver group with his brother, József, and his friends, with whom they visited and explored the caves of the region. Between 1973 and 1978, he studied general geology at the Komenský University, and after completing his studies, he worked as an employee of the Štúr Geological Institute in Bratislava. In 1982, he returned to his homeland and, in addition to caving, he committed himself to nature conservation. He works in Rožňov, Losonc, and Rimaszombat. He and his caver friends have been continuously exploring the Gömör cave, exploring and mapping more than 200 caves to his name. For example, the mapping of the caves of the Derencsényi Karst, but they also mapped the magnesite caves of the region (Patakalja, Jolsva, Burda, Lubény, Kassa-Bankó). These caves are considered a world rarity, similar ones only occur in the United States, Brazil and Tasmania. The longest magnesite cave is 73 meters long, which was discovered near Rónapatak (Rovné) in the area of the former mine. He and his colleagues did a lot of research in the Cseres Mountains, the Selmec Mountains, the Korpona Plateau, and on the Polyana, where caves of mostly small surface areas, previously unknown in Slovakia, formed by the remains of trees buried 15-19 million years ago, were discovered. ; Since 2002, he has been an employee of the Rimaszombat branch of the Slovak Caves Directorate based in Liptov, and his duties include supervising the caves in Slovakia. Several dozen caves are discovered every year, and currently there are more than seven thousand. ; In addition to speleology, Lajos Gaál is an active nature conservationist, and has published numerous publications and educational articles. He also contributed to the creation of more than one nature trail (Beretke), information center (Domicai cave), and last but not least, together with László Kálmán and Attila Vörös, he was the re-founder of scouting in Rimaszombat after the change of regime. ; Among his books, we highlight the work entitled The Natural Heritage of Gömörország, which was published in 2010 under the auspices of the Gömör-Kishonti Museum Association, and is a worthy counterpart to the work of István B. Kovács Gömörország – The Faces of a Country in Facts, Pictures and Thoughts.