The investigation of the Havranická Cave situated in the northern part of the Malé Karpaty Mts. included geological, mineralogical, geochemical, and microbiological methods aimed at the explanation of the speleogenesis of the cave. The karstifikation process in the Malé Karpaty Mts. started in the Pliocene at earliest, after emerging the mountains, what performed during the Upper Miocene. The origin of the investigated cave is connected with the N–S directed fault, activated during the Pliocene–Quaternary. The material deposited into the crevices of the cave walls was undergone by mineralogical study showing mainly allochtonous clayey material strongly calcified by percolating water. The XRD analyses identified clayey minerals like kaolinite, chlorite, and illite. The chemical composition of a water sample from a small pool collecting the percolation water was investigated. Following the thermodynamical calculations the water is equilibriated with calcite and dolomite under circumstances of CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) approximately ten times higher then the pCO2 value of the atmosphere causing more intensive carbonate dissolution. The microbiological investigation of the cave sediments identified ten species of microscopic fungi, mostly represented by genus Aspergillus and Penicillum.
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