One of the feature that distinguishes the Świętorzyskie mountains from others in Poland is a variety of geological layers and forms. The last 500 million years of Earth’s life can be found and researched here.
That’s why Świętokrzyskie is sometimes called a paradise for geologists or a time vehicle. By walking only few kilometres one can move forward or back in time hundreds millions years. And those layers are available on surface here while, for instance, around Warsaw such old rocks are 2000 metres under ground.
In the first featured image we see a half a billion years old quartzite sandstone from the Cambrian period. It is the material the whole main range is built of including The Bald Mountains with Lysica and Holy Cross. It’s quite hard so it was resistant to weathering processes that destroyed younger layers of rocks.
The Cambrian was a start of rapid evolution of life on our planet that came a long way from simple microbes to more and more complex species like fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Remains of those are often found here. A famous discovery was made in a quarry in Zachełmie near Kielce, of footprints of the first tetrapod, a four legged animal. Also the oldest traces of lung fishes were found in a province along with the biggest described armoured fish called Dunkleosteus. All those findings were attributed to Piotr Szrek, a geologist and palaeontologist born in Kielce.
In Jurassic layers of our mountains, footprints of dinosaurs are still visible. The ones in a geological preserve near Skarżysko – Gagaty Sołtykowskie may confirm that those big, scary reptiles protected their young ones by making them march next to adults. Furthermore, there is some speculation that we can observe here some scene of hunting by two carnivorous theropods for a herd of plant-eating sauropods.
The first Jura-Park in Poland was opened in Świetokrzyskie in Bałtów. It started with a small rock called by locals Devils’ hoof which occurred to be a dinosaur footprint. It led to a discovery of more remains of those animals. Soon after the Park with models of various dinosaurs was created it became the most visited attraction in the Świętokrzyskie voivodship along with its additional features like a 5d cinema, a fossil museum, an amusement park and more.
I described only few aspects of this paradise for geologists focusing here on palaeontological discoveries. There is a cave called Paradise here, one of the most magnificent and full of stalactites and other cave formations. In Jurassic limestones hides striped flint, the mineral that can be found nowhere else in the world. These themes and many more will appear in future posts.