Why do Trovante stones grow and move?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In Romania, there are several places with interesting stone formations - growing trovanti stones.

The largest accumulation of these stones is located in the Romanian region of Valcea. There was even an open-air museum in the village of Costesti.

Locals claim that these stones grow in size. Although I did not find any studies measuring changes in their volume.

Yes, the stones look as if their volume is increasing.

Layered inner structure of trovant

The most important feature of these stones, according to the assurances of local residents, that stones can multiply by budding, when smaller stones seem to come out of their "parent". This happens after the stones get wet: a bulge appears on it. Over time, it grows, and when the weight of the new stone becomes large enough, it breaks off from the mother.

It is this example that prompts many to argue that trovantes are living stones, but only with a different form of life, mineral. It could be a silicon life form, they said.

This version was put forward at one time by the geochemist and the founder of Russian mineralogy - academician Alexander Fersman.

Followers of this claim that many stones can even move:

Moving Rocks are a geological phenomenon on the dried up Lake Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, USA. A source

Despite these obvious mysteries - no one is going to study them with a scientific approach: with measurements of increase in size and analysis of the breed.

There are examples when the outer shell of a stone bursts like a shell and "hatches" from it, increasing in size to a structure of a different species and color.

It turns out that there are many places similar to Romanian trovants in other parts of the world.

Oryol Region

Devy-stone in Kolomenskoye in the Voice ravine

Guess why it is called Devi-stone?

There is another interesting phenomenon - stone flowers. In China, in Duan Yaoskiy county of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the mountains there is a place on the stones, on which stone flowers periodically "bloom".

Locals claim that these "flowers" often appear and then disappear after a few years. Geologists say that stone flowers are mostly composed. from calcium carbonate (remember this).

If you do not plunge into esotericism and versions that do not express a mechanism in the observed picture of the growth of stones - what hypothesis can be proposed?

Geologists, the maximum that can be explained, is that they put forward the assumption that the salts or minerals contained in trovants can increase in size over time when moisture or carbon dioxide from the atmosphere gets inside. But I have not seen detailed descriptions of these processes. Perhaps it will be possible to independently propose a theoretical basis for such facts? Let's try…

Let's go along the path that the rock of trowants and similar stones is geo-concrete (fossilized mud masses) with a certain composition, which increase over time.

In the modern construction industry, in its theoretical part, there is a description of the process of increasing the size of concrete. The detailed process is described here

I will quote from there the most important and understandable information:

Another interesting breed: bentonite clays

This is hydroaluminosilicate, it has the property of swelling when hydrated (14-16 times). Just in the size of the volume that we see in the travants. That is, trovants contain this clay, and when water gets from rain (through cracks or chips) into the rock, it begins to swell like yeast dough!

This confirms the fact that if you break off a piece from the Romanian trovant, then it will significantly increase in size.

Bentonite clay, even in color, is similar to the color of trowants

Check out this short video to make sure that these properties of this clay are used in modern construction and drilling in drilling fluids.

Apparently, in such deposits of bentonite clays, with constant contact with water, these trowants are formed. Plus, in parallel, the process of fossilization of the shell is going on, which does not allow water to enter the mass and quickly increase in volume.

I will add one thought. Perhaps, through a fresh chip, crack, not only moisture penetrates, but also CO2 - and the stone, after increasing in size, quickly becomes covered with a crust that does not allow moisture to penetrate deep. CO2 is needed for this geo-concrete to gain strength (carbonization). Trovant is covered with a crust that has already reacted with water and CO2, which is gradually growing. It is for this reason that we see that another spherical structure grows faster in the trovante, because it receives more moisture from the atmosphere and during rains than through the thicker crust of the “mother”.

Layers of increasing volume, the swelling process can be seen in this photo.

A sensation in this topic would be information after measurements about the growth of not only the volume, but also the mass of stones. If this fact is proven, it will become clear that these rocks take CO2 from the atmosphere and use it as a building material to increase their volume and mass and "budding-reproduction".

All this is an assumption that requires careful testing in laboratories by geologists and materials scientists. There is a hypothesis - it needs to be tested and, if confirmed, translated into theory. And one riddle will be less.

It is by these processes that these examples can be explained:

"Chubby" granite cladding on the small pyramid in Giza. Provided that this granite is a block-by-block casting, the convex geometry of each block becomes clear.

Polygonal masonry in Sacsayhuaman. Similar "loaves". They swelled as they gained strength.

In natural megaliths, such swelling of the rock can also be found. Although geology claims that syenite is an igneous rock. This comparison with the topic of this article additionally speaks about the mineral (mud) nature of syenite as cold fluidolites.

Also Mountain Shoria. "Swollen stones". These species are presented in great numbers on the Krasnoyarsk pillars and in other places. Perhaps the formation of cracks occurred as a result of such swelling in the process of strength gain or crystallization of the rock.

These natural processes of slowly increasing the size of rocks are most likely not unique to trovants. They are found in other rocks and minerals. Most likely, all nodules are also growing stones:

Nodules of marcasite

Pyrite. Obviously grown "finger"

There are giant nodules, the shell of which cracks with increasing size and the cracks are filled with a mass growing in volume.

Hematite. iron mineral Fe2O3

Malachite can also grow like a trovant. It is the growth, the increase in its volume that explains the "annual rings" of its drawing.

Other examples can be viewed here

Of course, some of these mysteries of growing stones remain incomprehensible. But, you must admit, if you conduct research, and even more experience that simulates these processes and confirms this whole theory with a detailed description, doubts will disappear. So let some research institute of geology deal with this. And this will be precisely science, which in this case will serve for ordinary citizens, to create a philistine understanding of these processes.