Living Stones.. Some Secrets Revealed in Mysterious Stones Able to Grow and Move in Romania

The small Romanian town of Costesti is home to an unusual geological phenomenon known as trovants.

Trovantes vary greatly in size and shape, some can fit comfortably in the palm of your hand while others can reach 4.5 meters in height.

Starting as pebbles that grow by about 5 cm every thousand years, the floating rocks are unique mineral structures that mimic plant and mammal life.

These strange “living” rocks seem to grow just like plant tissues and produce new rocks like animals.

Trovantes don’t just emerge from the ground, they can be found in masses of sand of varying geologic ages reaching natural outcrops or in sand pits.

It is noteworthy that the term “Trovants” is synonymous with the German term “Sandsteinkonkretionen”, which means “sandy knot or hillock”.

Dr. Mircea Teklianu from the Geological Institute of Romania said that the word “trovant” was used for the first time in the geological literature of Romania.

Visitors to Costesti can walk on a large number of spherical stones that grow slowly over time in the presence of rainwater. It consists mainly of a hard, rocky core surrounded by sands that form its crust.

The minerals in rainwater form an internal interaction that results in an increase in pressure inside, which causes the rocks to grow and multiply.

In a clearer sense, “Trovantes” is a type of hardened concrete or stone, granular or sedimentary sandstone, bonded together with limestone cement (calcium carbonate).

Scientists have not found any difference between “Trovantes” and the sandy base surrounding it, so they suspect that the spherical shapes were formed as a result of unusually intense and prolonged seismic activity in the middle Miocene, 6 million years ago. And that the shock waves emanating from the earth compressed the sandy deposits and concentrated the calcareous cement, forming its spherical masses.

Over time, the elements eroded the sandstone around it, exposing the denser rock.

When exposed to heavy rains, some cement may seep into its surface, which over time is gradually added around the outer perimeter of the stone.

Not much has been written about this process, but it is said to occur only 4-5 cm over the course of 1200 years.

When cutting the stone, bulges and rings can be observed, very similar to the rings that form the circumference of trees, each of which represents a certain period of growth.

Although they are not alive in the scientific sense, they are described by locals and tourists as “living” rocks due to the way they change over time, as well as their ability to travel from one place to another, which is likely due to – due to the increase in the mass of the stone on one side, this leads to its tilt forward.

According to a study co-authored by Dr. Teklinu, Costesti is not the only place where Trovantes stones are found, rather, they are found in all the Carpathians of Romania.

However, those of the Costesti are well known and have a large diameter. They are spherical and elliptical, but many are double compound.

Source: Daily Mail