The Growing Stones - Trovants

The “Trovants” are stones or sandstone concretions that secrete cement and appear to grow by themselves. They consist of a stone core with an outer shell of sand believed to be the result of cementation that occurred millions of years ago.

After heavy rain small forms appear on the rocks leading them to be dubbed “growing stones” by locals. Examples of trovants can be seen at the Trovant Museum (Muzeul Trovantilor) in Costesti, in the Valcea region of Romania.

The Trovants Museum Natural Reserve, located at 8 km from Horezu, in the village Costesti, declared UNESCO monument, spreads on valleys and hills strange hoodoos, also named „the stones that are growing”, having sizes starting with several millimeters to 6-8 meters.

The Trovants Museum Natural Reserve is situated in Costesti village (Valcea County), in south of village, near National Road 67. It has 11000 sqm and was created as a geological reserve.

In various structural units from Romania there are sand or gress levels with trovants, but the ones in Costesti are impressive because of diversity of their shapes and their dimensions (up to 5 m).

The term “Trovant” is usual in Romanian terminology for geology. The trovants (cemented sand) represent local cementation in the reservoir of sand that contains them and the cementation various shapes, some of the very strange. 6 million years ago ther was a sedimentation basin here. The sand reservoir was formed as a consequence of the succesiv sedimentation of detritic material, transported by rivers from the continent.

Along with this sediments, from the water get accumulated chemical substances in excess (carbonates). The, over the first beds of sand the sedimentation continues and the sand gest compressed under the beds above. the water is eliminated through the empty spaces between the sand particles, that get pressed.

The two essential conditions for the trovants formation are:

- existence of sand sediments and conservation of a vast porosity, despite the normal compression caused by the pressure

- presence of local concentrations - “segregation” of specific minerals from secondary components dispersed in the host rock.

“Trovants Museum Natural Reserve “ was created in 2004 and is administrated by “Kogayon Association”, a nongovernmental organization of environment protection.