Costesti is a small town in the country of Romania, which is famous for its extremely confusing and absurd geological structures, typical of which is the phenomenon of round, potato-like stones. out of the ground, with many different sizes, called trovants.
Datrovant began to attract the attention of local people after it was discovered that these seemingly “inanimate” stones seemed to harbor life inside, even with liquid flowing from them. inside out. It is said that a trovant can grow and move on its own, especially after heavy rains, like a living being.
Stonetrovants come in many different shapes and sizes, some as small as 4-7 cm, which can fit in your hand, but some are gigantic, up to 4.5 m tall. In addition to the town of Costesti, scientists also found several trovant stones in about 20 different locations across Romania. The word trovant here means “cement sand”.
Florin Stoican, manager of Buila-Vanturarita National Park, says trovant is a concretized form of sedimentary sand grains or rocks bound together with limestone cement (calcium carbonate), some made from sandstone. rhinestones, others are gravel. In geological terms, they are made of grindstone and agglomerate.
According to some scientists, trovant rocks were formed from earthquakes that occurred on Earth about 6 million years ago. They found that the structure of the trovant is similar to the structure of the sand bed in the vicinity. They believe that trovant rocks are created by unusually large and long-lasting tremors. Shock waves emitted by the earth compact the sand deposits and concentrate the limestone concrete to Creates the raised rounded shape of the trovant. Over time, these elements have worn away the loose sandstone around them, revealing denser layers of rock. Scientists believe that trovant rocks even existed before humans.
Trovant stones are usually oval or slightly round in shape, rough or pitted in appearance, and can, if split in half, have a tree-like appearance.
There are rumors that say that after heavy rains, trovant stones will grow, even moving from place to place. After a period of research, scientists have found a partial answer to this mystery.
Trovant rocks are the result of a geological phenomenon called sandstone fusion. Each block consists of a rock core and an outer sandy crust. Trovant blocks can be composed of one or more rocks. Trimming the rock, the inside has circles or ellipses similar to tree rings.
The binder in the rock is usually a carbonate-containing compound. Trovant rocks were formed tens of millions of years ago after earthquakes. When exposed to heavy rain, their limestone cement (calcium carbonate) can melt and gradually form the outer circumference of the rock over time, many documents suggest that development occurs only in about 4-5 cm over 1,200 years, which means that humans cannot notice their “growing”.
Regarding the fact that trovant rocks can move on their own, scientists are still scratching their heads about this phenomenon and have not come up with a reasonable explanation. Currently, the land containing many trovant rocks in the town of Costesti has been built into a national park, recognized by UNESCO as an area in need of conservation.