The mysterious “Trovants” are a fascinating geological phenomenon found in Romania. These rocks, known for their ability to “grow” and move, have intrigued locals and researchers alike.
Trovants are made of a hard stone core surrounded by a layer of sandstone. They grow through a process that involves the absorption of minerals from rainwater. When water containing calcium carbonate and other minerals comes into contact with the stone, it precipitates on the surface, creating layers that can accumulate over time. The name “Trovants” comes from the Romanian word “trovant”, which means “growing stone”.
When water containing calcium carbonate and other minerals comes into contact with the stone, it precipitates on the surface, creating layers that can accumulate over time. This process can make these rocks appear to grow, although the growth rate is extremely slow – about 4-5 centimeters in 1000 years. Some people also believe that trovants can “walk,” much like the so-called sailing stones of Death Valley that appear to drift across the flat desert landscape on their own. Trovants are unusual geological formations found in Romania that are known for their ability to “grow” and move. These rocks have a hard stone core surrounded by a layer of sandstone. They grow through a process that involves the absorption of minerals from rainwater.
While many academics are skeptical about “trovant walking” claims, they don’t deny the possibility that the heating or cooling of the soil could cause movement among the stones. The unusual way in which trovants form often makes them appear alien to the landscape surrounding them. They can become huge over long periods, with some reaching several meters in height. If the secretion of minerals is uneven, they can appear to multiply and even move from one place to another. These fascinating ‘living stones’ were thought to consist of a stone core with an outer shell of sand, and after a heavy rain small stone forms are said to appear on the rocks leading them to be dubbed as the “growing stones”. What’s more interesting is the fact that these Trovants when cut had spherical and ellipsoidal rings similar to the ones of a tree trunk. These growing rocks were thought to look identical and even move like the sliding rocks of death valley.
Stones That Grow and Move?
There were few studies about origin of these growing stones of Romania, and there are many hypothesis, some of them even fantastical. According to International Geological Congress conducted in Oslo 2008, these “Trovanti” were improperly considered as “sandstone concretions”. The study of these trovants was started in the Carpathians area from about 1883 (Cobalcescu) and by 1900 Koch gave his opinions about their origin.
It was found that there was no mineralogical difference between these pseudoconcretions and the surrounding sands, with no distinct nucleus inside them, and their cement is often carbonate-type. According to some reports, there was a sedimentation basin in this area some 6 million years ago, and the trovants were not identical, and complex aggregates of two ore more trovants can often be found.
According to the hypothesis of the congress, the Trovants of Romania represent diagenetic textures reflecting paleodynamic (paleoseismic) conditions and correspond to specific compactions of the sandy sediments containing locally solutions (especially carbonate) accumulated in the sand, which during important seismic shocks and under the influence of the internal cohesion forces tended to spherical forms.
The gravitation force, seismic shocks, solution cohesion forces (particularly surface tension) and the adhesion strength between the sand grains and the liquid are believed to be involved in this process. It is to be noted that this hypothesis on the seismic origin of the trovants is very well sustained by many laboratory experiments.
The perfect spherical shaped Trovants which sometimes can be found are believed to be because of great magnitudes and durations of the paleoearthquakes. There are many trovants in Romania which are even diversely shaped. As far as the growth of these ‘living stones’ is concerned, certain stones may gradually get slightly larger as the result of absorbing water, in this case, the accumulations and deposits of minerals cemented by waters rich in calcium carbonate seems to be the reason.
