We have a museum in Sochi, which, in terms of the number of exhibits collected, is far ahead of any of the museums in the world.
In it, without any permission, you can touch the exhibits with your hands, take pictures with them, and even ... trample these exhibits with your feet.
If you want to take some especially vending rarity from the museum with you, no one will say a word of reproach to you: those around you see you off with a sympathetic, approving look.
The reader, of course, guessed that we are talking about our Sochi pebble beach - unique in its content and invariably arousing great interest among resort visitors.
This, of course, is a natural historical and geological museum, in which each pebble-exhibit is calibrated to the desired size, smoothly turned and polished by sea waves, and washed clean before being shown to the general public.
The history of the appearance of sea pebbles on our beach is interesting in itself. Numerous mountain rivers and rivers for centuries eroded the layers and thicknesses of the Caucasus Mountains, carrying to the Black Sea, either with a calm fast current, or with a seething thunderstorm stream, a mass of rocky breaks, boulders, and slabs of various shapes. The sea, accepting all this material already in a partially crushed form, continued to grind and sort by size, run in and polish the "works" of mountains that fell into its waves. Geologists call these works rocks, and the history of their appearance, numbering many millions of years, is the most ancient and mysterious story of our land, the history of our region, captured so vividly in the exhibited stones of the Sochi beach.
Seventy million years ago grew, formed Caucasian mountains. Their growth was accompanied by a roar and a roar, fiery rivers of erupted lava. Most of the Caucasian peaks of the Central Range are extinct volcanoes. And the pebbles brought to the beach very eloquently tell about the volcanism that raged here. Here pumice - a porous hygienic pebble - is a frozen volcanic magma, which has poured out far, caught air and is therefore very light. Here are tuffs and basalts “frozen” at the exit from the volcano - they are heavier than pumice, but much lighter than granite. The granite on the beach is the eroded roots of the mountains, the magma that solidified inside the volcano.
Heavy granite - pebble stones, usually white, egg-shaped - the most famous representative of volcanic rocks. Due to the brilliance of minerals evenly mixed in it (and we all know from school years that it is quartz, mica and feldspar), due to its hardness and strength, it has become a stone of monuments, obelisks and monuments. However, once on a pebble beach, granite pebbles have lost their monumental perspective, and all its beauty is aimed at creating a good mood for people relaxing by the sea.
Other igneous rocks found under our feet are tuffs of different shades, basalts are also a widely used facing and building material. Among the outflowing rocks there are also semi-precious, decorative stones - porphyrites, syenites, chrysolites. Numerous quartzites can be added to them - transparent and translucent stones, as well as durable flint-chalcedony, about healing properties which famous healers have spoken at once in our time. These minerals, which are not related to rocks, and therefore more ancient in their origin, also came to our beaches from the vents of volcanoes.
Long before the Caucasus Mountains grew, the territory of the whole of Sochi and Krasnodar Territory was the bottom of the sea. In no case should one be surprised at this, because long before the appearance of man on earth, the entire territory of the current Russian Federation was the seabed. In our places, the land repeatedly rose above the sea, islands appeared, which were covered with tropical vegetation. It has long been proven that dinosaurs and other ancient land animals lived in our area. Then all this was again absorbed by the deep sea, and on the seabed there was a continuous process of accumulation of sedimentary rocks. When the mountains heaved up, the layers at the bottom of the sea also began to move. They also became mountains, lateral Caucasian ranges, and the rocks accumulated in them also began to be destroyed by rivers and roll into the sea.
The predominant sedimentary rock in marine pebbles is sandstone. There are gray, tobacco-colored, brown, yellow sandstone pebbles - depending on the composition of the sand that settled at the bottom of the sea. Often the sandstone is indented with white veins running into different directions. These are hieroglyphs. According to the theory of the Dutch scientist F. Künen, calcite and other veinlets in sandstone are the result of the deposition of turbidity flows in the sea, carrying particles of rocks destroyed after earthquakes along submarine canyons.
Many rocks in the composition of sea pebbles can tell about the marine inhabitants that lived in our places millions of years ago. Such is the shell rock - mollusks of the ancient ocean are easily visible in its structure. But limestone and marl are also of organic origin, but we will not see the remains of marine organisms of the Jurassic period of the Cenozoic era with the naked eye. To detect them, a microscope is needed, since these rocks were composed of settled microorganisms - plankton - mixed with chemical precipitation. Flattened limestones and marls are common stones on our pebbly beaches. No wonder the North-Western Caucasus is called the kingdom of limestones and marls.
Slate is also reminiscent of the era of dinosaurs and pterodactyls - a soft sedimentary stone consisting of petrified silt of the Jurassic swamps. Getting into the sea, slate does not remain in a state of pebbles for long - harder brothers, driven by waves, quickly process it into sand. But on land it is easier to find it. Our Sochi slate is often called roofing slate - the highlanders used this layered stone as a material for the roof of their dwellings.
Very interesting is the third group of rocks that, after igneous and sedimentary ones, are part of marine pebbles - these are metamorphic or transformed rocks. Among them, semi-precious stones are often found, which, after jewelry processing, acquire an attractive brilliance and beauty. Nature-alchemist is able to transform one substance into another, changing their crystal structure. True, this process takes millions of years. During this time, under high pressure and exposure to high temperatures, limestone turns into marble, sandstone into jasper, etc. Pebbles with traces of metamorphism are not uncommon on our coast: half of the stone is a typical gray sandstone, and the other half is a jasperoid with a reddish tint.
Of course, using only this article, it is impossible to learn to distinguish between minerals and rocks, to determine the time of their appearance and the natural processes accompanying it. But everyone can learn to read stones like an open book. To do this, you need to work a little with special literature, reference guides. The task of our publication is to increase the interest of each reader in those treasures that are under our feet. A pearl in a broad sense is an outlandish, beautiful work of nature. There are a myriad of such pearls on our beaches.
Finishing this brief review, I would like to talk about stones with holes, often through and of a rather large diameter. As a rule, this is the work of a sea dweller, a stone-boring mollusk or a folas. Rotating with the help of a jet apparatus given to it by nature, treating the surface of the stone with acid, this bivalve, mussel-like mollusk drills minks in soft rocks, most often in sandstone, and hides in them from predators. They say that a pebble with a through hole found on the beach brings happiness ...
The museum, which, in terms of the number of collected exhibits, is far ahead of any of the museums in the world. In it, without any permission, you can touch the exhibits with your hands, take pictures with them, and even ... trample these exhibits with your feet. If you want to take some especially vending rarity from the museum with you, no one will say a word of reproach to you: those around you see you off with a sympathetic, approving look.
The reader, of course, guessed that we are talking about our Sochi pebble beach- unique in its content and invariably arousing great interest of visitors-resorts. This, of course, is a natural historical and geological museum, in which each pebble-exhibit is calibrated to the desired size, smoothly turned and polished by sea waves, and washed clean before being shown to the general public.
History of appearance sea pebbles on our beach is interesting in itself. Numerous mountain rivers and rivulets have been eroding the layers and strata of the Caucasus Mountains for centuries, carrying to the Black Sea, either in a calm, fast current, or in a raging thunderstorm, a mass of rocky breaks, boulders, and slabs of various shapes. The sea, accepting all this material already in a partially crushed form, continued to grind and sort by size, run in and polish the "works" of mountains that fell into its waves. Geologists call these works rocks, and the history of their appearance, numbering many millions of years, is the most ancient and mysterious history of our land, the history of our region, captured so vividly in the exhibited stones of the Sochi beach.
Seventy million years ago, the Caucasus Mountains grew and formed. Their growth was accompanied by a roar and a roar, fiery rivers of erupted lava. Most of the Caucasian peaks of the Central Range are extinct volcanoes. And the pebbles brought to the beach very eloquently tell about the volcanism that raged here. Here pumice- a porous hygienic pebble is a frozen volcanic magma, which has erupted far, caught air and is therefore very light. Here are the "frozen" at the exit of the volcano tuffs and basalts- they are heavier than pumice, but much lighter than granite. Granite on the beach, these are the washed out roots of the mountains, the magma that solidified inside the volcano.
Heavy granite- pebble stones, usually white, egg-shaped - the most famous representative of volcanic rocks. Due to the brilliance of minerals evenly mixed in it (and we all know from school years that it is quartz, mica and feldspar), due to its hardness and strength, it has become a stone of monuments, obelisks and monuments. However, once on a pebble beach, granite pebbles have lost their monumental perspective, and all its beauty is aimed at creating a good mood for people relaxing by the sea.
Other igneous rocks found under our feet - tuffs different shades, basalts- also a widely used facing and building material. There are among the outflowing rocks and semi-precious, decorative pebbles - porphyrites, syenites, chrysolites. To these can be added numerous quartzites- transparent and translucent pebbles, as well as durable flint-chalcedony, about the healing properties of which famous healers at once started talking in our time. These minerals, which are not related to rocks, and therefore more ancient in their origin, also came to our beaches from the vents of volcanoes.
Long before the Caucasus Mountains grew, the territory of the entire Sochi and the Krasnodar Territory was the seabed. In no case should one be surprised at this, because long before the appearance of man on earth, the entire territory of the current Russian Federation was the seabed. In our places, the land repeatedly rose above the sea, islands appeared, which were covered with tropical vegetation. It has long been proven that dinosaurs and other ancient land animals lived in our area. Then all this was again absorbed by the deep sea, and on the seabed there was a continuous process of accumulation of sedimentary rocks. When the mountains heaved up, the layers at the bottom of the sea also began to move. They also became mountains, lateral Caucasian ranges, and the rocks accumulated in them also began to be destroyed by rivers and roll into the sea.
The predominant sedimentary rock in the composition sea pebbles- it sandstone. There are gray, tobacco-colored, brown, yellow sandstone pebbles - depending on the composition of the sand that settled at the bottom of the sea. Often the sandstone is indented with white veins running in different directions. This - hieroglyphs. According to the theory of the Dutch scientist F. Künen, calcite and other veinlets in sandstone are the result of the deposition of turbidity flows in the sea, carrying particles of rocks destroyed after earthquakes along underwater canyons.
Many rocks in sea pebbles able to tell about the marine inhabitants that lived in our places millions of years ago. Such shell rock- in its structure, mollusks of the ancient ocean are easily visible. But limestone and marl- also of organic origin, but we will not see the remains of marine organisms of the Jurassic period of the Cenozoic era with the naked eye. To detect them, you need a microscope, since these rocks were composed of settled microorganisms - plankton - mixed with chemical precipitation. Flattened limestones and marls are common stones on our pebbly beaches. No wonder the North-Western Caucasus is called the kingdom limestone and marls.
The era of dinosaurs and pterodactyls is also reminiscent of slate- soft sedimentary stone, consisting of petrified silt of Jurassic swamps. Once in the sea, shale does not remain in a state of pebbles for long - harder brothers, driven by waves, quickly process it into sand. But on land it is easier to find it. Ours, Sochi slate often called roofing - the highlanders used this layered stone as a material for the roof of their dwellings.
Very interesting is the third group of rocks, which, after igneous and sedimentary ones, are included in the composition sea pebbles are metamorphic or transformed rocks. Among them, there are often semiprecious stones, which, after jewelry processing, acquire an attractive brilliance and beauty. Nature-alchemist is able to transform one substance into another, changing their crystal structure. True, this process takes millions of years. During this time under high pressure and exposure to high temperatures limestone turns into marble, sandstone- v jasper etc. Pebbles with traces of metamorphism are not uncommon on our shore: half of the stone is typical gray sandstone, and the second half jaspermoid with a reddish tint.
Of course, using only this article, it is impossible to learn to distinguish between minerals and rocks, to determine the time of their appearance and the natural processes accompanying it. But read stones like an open book, anyone can learn. To do this, you need to work a little with special literature, reference guides. The task of our publication is to increase the interest of each reader in those treasures that are under our feet. A pearl in a broad sense is an outlandish, beautiful work of nature. There are a myriad of such pearls on our beaches.
At the end of this short review, I would like to talk about stones with holes, often through and rather large in diameter. As a rule, this is the work of a sea dweller, mollusc or folasa. Rotating with the help of a jet apparatus given to him by nature, processing the surface stone acid, this bivalve, mussel-like clam drills holes in soft rock, most commonly sandstone, and hides in them from predators. They say that a pebble with a through hole found on the beach brings happiness ...
Quiet sunny morning. We are on the Black Sea, somewhere on a rocky coast, for example, at the foot of the Karadag rocks.
These are those hours of complete silence, when the night wind from the land has not yet been replaced by the daytime sea wind. The almost motionless sea changes its colors every minute, reflecting the sky and coastal rocks, illuminated by bright rays.
Nothing disturbs the serenity of the early morning. A winged predator circles lazily high above the rocks. Even the busy seagulls have quieted down and are sitting in groups on the shore, as if waiting for something.
Quiet on the seabed. Between the coastal cliffs it is clearly visible to a great depth. The stalks of brown algae are barely noticeably swaying, their dense thickets resemble some kind of dwarf fantastic forest. A chiseled figure of a seahorse has separated from a stalk of seaweed and, quickly moving its tiny fins, soars over a forest of algae. One of the stalks suddenly stirred and, gently curving, floated between the stones. Behind him is another. But these are not stems, but very thin needle fish. Where there are fewer algae and the bottom is lined with multi-colored Karadag pebbles, flocks of tiny mullet fry quickly sweep by. A huge black crab crawled out from under the stone, stirring up the water, moving its claws, stood still in thought, looked fiercely at underwater world bulging eyes and crawled sideways under another stone.
Silence and peace in nature involuntarily give rise to the idea of the eternal inviolability of stone cliffs and rocks, piled up on the coast. And it seems that there is no such force that could destroy these motionless masses ...
But a light breeze blew from the sea. The smallest ripples covered the surface of the water in long stripes. The sky is still clear, only far on the horizon, like a lonely sail, a white cloud has appeared.
Several minutes pass. The cloud grows, branches, becomes gray. Another moment - and, having become completely lead, it approaches the shore with a huge clawed paw. The sun has disappeared. Strong gusts of wind break the tops of the waves and throw them on the shore. The rocks become wet and slippery.
Seagulls shot up into the air and with a cry, now falling, now soaring up, quickly sweep over the sea. The waves keep growing and growing, and finally three-meter shafts fall on the shore. The stone, from which we first observed the seabed, now and then disappears under their crests. Another minute, and a solid wall of rain hid the horizon ...
If a biologist prefers calm weather for observations, then for a geologist who wants to see the action of external geological forces, storms and downpours provide the richest material.
A downpour produces a destructive work of enormous force, especially in mountainous regions, where the streams of water formed by a downpour rush down the slopes of mountains, gullies and mountain streams at high speed, washing away and carrying into the sea an enormous amount of stone detrital material.
Most of all, fine particles of clayey and sandy loose rocks are removed. These particles are easily moved by water currents, even at low speeds. It is clear that the soil cover of treeless slopes suffers most from rainstorms in mountainous areas. Sometimes dozens of hectares of fertile soils are washed away. At the same time, soils and other loose rocks saturated with moisture can form powerful mud flows, mudflows, of terrible destructive power. Rushing along the slopes, mudflows sweep away orchards, vineyards and even entire villages on their way.
However, such catastrophic events are relatively rare. Usually there is washout and washout surface waters the smallest particles of rocks that are in suspension in the water, and large fragments - pebbles, cobblestones and boulders - move, rolling along the bottom of mountain streams.
All detrital material washed off the land surface is eventually carried out to the sea and deposited on its bottom. At the same time, it is quite regularly distributed on the seabed according to the size of the debris.
Everyone visiting the Crimea is well aware that on the beach of the South Coast, as well as other places on the mountain coast, there are many fragments of rocks and pebbles of various sizes. If you go down to the bottom of the sea 100-150 meters from the pebble shore, it will be lined with small pebbles (gravel) and coarse sand. At great depths, the bottom is covered with fine-grained sand, which becomes thinner and thinner with increasing depth, and at depths reaching hundreds of meters, the sea bottom is covered with a continuous layer of silt.
Such a distribution of clastic material on the seabed is explained by the unequal mobility of water. Off the coast, in the surf zone, where water is almost always in motion, sand particles, and even more so silt, cannot settle, only large pebbles remain in this zone. At greater depths, where the sea surface disturbance does not affect the bottom sediments so much, for example, at a depth of 10-15 meters, sand particles are deposited, and, finally, at a depth of more than a hundred meters, where even the excitement of strong storms does not disturb the silence of the bottom sediments. waters, - the smallest particles of silt smaller than 0.01 millimeters are deposited. Only the bottom currents of great sea depths sometimes stir up and move the muddy; sediment.
In the regions of the seabed most remote from the coast, even silty particles hardly settle, since most of the clay material settles, although at considerable depths, but closer to the coast from which it comes. Only wind-blown dust can be deposited on the seabed at a great distance from the shore.
There are also deviations from this regularity in the distribution of marine sediments. For example, the Evpatoria beach does not contain pebbles and consists entirely of shell sand; the bottom is also lined with it for many hundreds of meters from the coast. In the surf zone on the Black Sea coast of the Kerch Peninsula, in some places there are no sands; here, from the very coast to considerable depths, the bottom of the sea is covered with silty sediments. This is explained by the fact that the land of the Evpatoria coast is composed of loose shell limestone and sandy-clayey rocks, while the coast of the Kerch Peninsula in places is composed only of clays. It is clear that these loose rocks, when washed out and destroyed by surface waters, easily disintegrate into composite fine-grained particles without forming large fragments and, thus, there is no zone of coarse-grained marine sediments here. The rocks of the Crimean mountain coast are composed of more ancient, compacted, strongly cemented sedimentary rocks and very strong - igneous. Due to their density, these rocks are preserved in large fragments for a long time, even when surface waters carry them over long distances.
Surface waters carry debris into the sea, and sea waves in the surf zone, in turn, perform continuous destructive work, which is especially intensified during storms. In the rocky shores, they develop niches and various ravines, sometimes of the most bizarre shape (for example, the original gully already known to us was formed - the Karadag Gate). The washed-out shores lose their stability, and from time to time, rock falls occur, cluttering up the coast with debris. If the coastal rocks are loose or weakly cemented, and the coasts are high and steep, then coastal slopes slide. Landslides often reach enormous proportions and cause severe damage in coastal areas. The clastic material formed as a result of the activity of sea waves is distributed along the seabed in the same regular way as the debris brought by surface waters. This is how sedimentary marine clastic rocks, otherwise called terrigenous (terra - earth), begin their formation at the bottom of the sea, since the particles from which they are formed come from the surface of the land - from the earth.
The organic life of the sea also creates large sediment accumulations on the seabed.
Anyone who has been to the Evpatoria beach or other places on the coast of the steppe Crimea or the Kerch Peninsula, of course, saw here a myriad of mollusk shells. In calm weather, at shallow depths, live mollusks can also be observed moving slowly along the bottom or attached to underwater rocks or algae.
There are especially many bivalve ribbed shells of the cardium edule mollusk, or cockles, painted in various shades of pinkish and lilac tones. Less common are oblong, claw-like shells of zolens and rather large beautiful shells of pectens, or, in other words, scallops. Where the coast abounds with underwater rocks or algae, one can find accumulations of black pear-shaped mussel shells, which form huge colonies called banks. In addition to the listed mollusks, there are many others. Small balanus crustaceans, which are also enclosed in a conical calcareous shell, are often attached to pitfalls and to the valves of large shells. These crustaceans are also called sea acorns.
Mollusk shells are also found in rocky shores, but they are most numerous in relatively shallow parts of the sea, where the bottom is lined with sand mixed with silt.
There are especially a lot of bottom mollusks, in particular cockles and scallops, inhabiting depths from 15 to 35 meters.
Over time, the calcareous shells of dying mollusks form many-meter layers on the bottom of the sea, and if it has a gentle slope, then the strip of shell deposits reaches a width of several kilometers. The waves of the surf carry the shells and their fragments to the shore, and thus there are extensive shell-like beaches, similar to Evpatoria.
This is how rocks of biological origin begin to form on the seabed, or, as they are called, biogenic, because the shell of a mollusk consists of calcium carbonate, which is extracted by the mollusk from a solution of sea water and precipitated by it in the form of a solid.
In addition to biogenic sediments, precipitation of chemical origin can be formed. These are various substances that precipitate in the form of crystals at the bottom of closed pools as a result of strong evaporation of water saturated with salts.
Such sediments include: self-precipitating table salt, Glauber's salt, gypsum and many other salts.
Some substances contained in river waters precipitate when these waters are mixed with sea salt water. So, for example, solutions of iron and manganese salts of river waters, falling into a salty sea basin, precipitate, forming silts enriched with these elements. These silts eventually turn into iron and manganese ores of sedimentary origin.
Calcium carbonate can also precipitate when the water temperature changes. In colder waters, the solubility of calcium carbonate is greater than in warm ones; heating water leads to its partial precipitation.
This is, in general terms, the process of formation on the seabed of thick layers of sediments of terrigenous, biogenic and chemical origin.
Centuries and millennia pass. More and more precipitation accumulates at the bottom of the sea, especially in its coastal zones, due to the continuous erosion by surface waters of the attached land. And if the earth's crust were in constant rest, then over time there would be no the globe continents, and there would be a continuous shallow ocean. But this does not happen and cannot happen, since the earth's crust is constantly in motion, sinking and rising, which, in turn, entails the advance of the sea on land and the retreat of sea waters from it. This is how deep sea depressions and high mountain systems are formed.
If land subsidence occurs, then the sea advances on the coast, and then coastal pebble deposits are at a greater depth and sands and silts or shell formations are deposited on top of them. In this way, interbedding of sedimentary rocks of different composition is created. If the land rises, then part of the marine sediments appears on the surface of the earth, and deeper marine sediments, for example, silts, are in a shallow zone, and then pebbles and sands are deposited on top of them.
fluctuations earth's crust occur continuously and almost always very slowly and imperceptibly, but over a long geological time, measured in hundreds of thousands and millions of years, individual sections of the earth move vertically for several kilometers, and therefore we can observe how ancient marine sediments sometimes lie on the tops of mountains.
Over a huge period of time, loose, loose or plastic bottom sediments of the sea gradually become compacted and turn into hard stone sedimentary rock, which reappears on the surface of the earth after centuries, is subjected to the destructive influence of atmospheric forces, and again its fragments or salts dissolved in water enter the sea and are deposited. at its bottom.
Such is the continuous process of destruction and formation of sedimentary rocks, the primary material of which was still igneous rocks.
We talked about the process of formation of sedimentary rocks at the bottom of the sea. Sedimentary rocks are also created on land. Various detrital material deposited by surface waters and wind also accumulates here. But the scale of accumulation of continental sedimentary rocks is negligible in comparison with marine ones. And the existence of continental precipitation is usually short-lived. Most often, they are quickly washed out and carried to the sea.
In a word, land is a place of predominantly the destruction of stone by external geological forces, and the sea is the area of formation of stone rocks and minerals of sedimentary origin.
The surface of the Crimean peninsula is more than 99% composed of sedimentary rocks of various composition and geological age. All these breeds marine origin, and only the relatively thin cover of loams and soils overlying them belongs to relatively recent continental formations.
Stones of sedimentary origin are very diverse, and many of them are minerals, i.e. mineral wealth that are used in the national economy.
Let's head now along the highway from Simferopol to Alushta. When descending from the pass, two kilometers from the highway, on its left side, a huge array of Mount Demerdzhi rises. On the top of the mountain and its slopes facing the sea, numerous pillars and towers of bizarre shape stand out. One of these pillars resembles a bust of Catherine II, and therefore Demerdzhi is sometimes called Ekaterin-mountain.
From a distance, the mountain is undeniably picturesque, but this is not enough for a geologist, he always strives to get to know the material from which its cliffs are made.
The best and easiest way to get to the top of Demerdzhi is from the Alushta pass. This will save you several hundred meters of ascent, as the height of the mountain exceeds 1200 meters.
Passing along the western slope of Demerdzhi, you will see a heap of huge blocks of stone below. This is a grand collapse, which in the last century destroyed the village, located at the foot of the mountain.
Mount Demerdzhi is composed of sedimentary rocks - conglomerates, which are strongly cemented pebbles. Now we already know that these are marine coastal deposits of some ancient sea or ancient river delta. Mountain conglomerates in time belong to the Jurassic period, 110-120 million years distant from us. It is not surprising that over such a long period of time, the coastal pebbles were firmly cemented and turned out to be more than 1200 meters above sea level.
The conglomerates of Mount Demerdzhi are a very strong rock, they slowly succumb to the influence of external forces. But still, wind, water and temperature fluctuations do their destructive work, again turning the conglomerate into a pebble. As a result of the centuries-old action of these forces, those bizarre pillars and towers that are visible from afar were formed. Here, on the top of the mountain, these pillars are especially majestic, and it is not even believed that they were created by the activity of external geological forces.
If we look closely at the pebbles that make up the conglomerate, we can find a wide variety of rocks among them. Here we will meet black pebbles of dense sandstones and shales, milky-white pebbles of quartz, red patterned pebbles of granite igneous rock unknown in the Crimea. Occasionally there are black shiny pebbles of the ore mineral hematite.
Black pebbles of dense sandstones and shales are fragments of rocks older than conglomerates. Shales also belong to the Jurassic rocks, but formed at the beginning of the Jurassic period, and are marine sediments of great depths. Numerous quartz pebbles are also representatives of older rocks than conglomerates. Igneous granite pebbles and hematite pebbles belong to even more ancient rocks, almost unknown in the Crimea. Only near the city of Balaklava was found a small rock of granite, but Demerdzhi pebbles, completely different from granite.
Where did granite fragments get into the Jurassic Sea?
Many scientists believe that in the Jurassic time, there was land to the north of Demerdzhi, composed of rocks unknown in the Crimea in our time. Later, this land sank to a great depth and formed a giant depression, which was filled with the waters of the Black Sea. Traces of the former existence of this land are imprinted in its fragments - pebbles enclosed in the Demerdzhi conglomerates.
The conglomerate is used by the local population as a rubble stone for the foundations of buildings, but it is not widely used as a building stone, since it is difficult to process.
Let's leave the top of Demerdzhi with its bizarre forms of weathering and go down to the southeastern slope of the mountain. Here we will see completely different rocks - shales and sandstones underlying the Demerdzhi conglomerates.
These thin-layered, almost black rocks are widespread throughout the southern and southeast coast Crimea. Their distinctive feature is that in many places they are strongly crumpled into folds and fissured. One can even observe folds of the second and third order, when the wing of one giant fold, in turn, is crumpled and consists of smaller folds, and the latter are also crumpled into small folds several tens of centimeters in size.
Shales and sandstones of the Black Sea coast of Crimea are among the most ancient rocks formed at the end of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic. These rocks are not subdivided in more detail by age, since they do not contain fossilized organic remains. They were given a common name - the Tauride strata.
It is easy to see that the rocks of the Taurian strata, like a layer cake, consist of layers of black thin-layered clay shales, interspersed with interlayers of dense sandstones. Consequently, these sediments, as well as conglomerates, are of clastic - terrigenous origin, but they were formed not in the coastal zone, but at greater depths, where fine clay particles could be deposited, from which shales were formed. During the deposition of these sediments, the depth of the sea changed continuously: at times the sea became shallower, and then sands were deposited, at times it became deeper again, and the deposition of clay particles resumed. Thus, the oscillatory process of the earth's crust was reflected in the nature of the structure of this sedimentary stratum. During the formation of rocks of the Tauride stratum in the lagoons and bays of the Jurassic Sea, in addition to clastic material, a large amount of plant remains accumulated, which turned out to be buried under the ides of lagoons and bays and have survived to our time in the form of coal beds. Coal in sandy-shale deposits is found in many places in the Crimea. Known, for example, Beshui mines, located in the upper reaches of the river. Kachi. For some time these mines were developed, and coal was used for local needs. Interlayers of petrified resin - jet - are often found in coal seams. The jet is easy to process, and various small items and decorations can be made from it.
Black Taurian shales easily delaminate into thin tiles, but, unfortunately, do not large sizes. Perhaps it will be possible to find a mass of these rocks in which the slates will not be so crushed, and then thin tiles of large sizes can be used as roofing material. Thick sandstone tiles are widely used by the local population: fences and even walls are laid out of them, mainly for outbuildings.
If we go around Mount Demerdzhi from the southeast and, going to the village of Generalskoye, climb up the Khopkhal gorge, then we will find ourselves in the area of distribution of other sedimentary rocks - limestones occurring on the Jurassic conglomerates.
In the Crimea, limestones are widely distributed and belong to different geological ages. The limestones in the Khopkhal gorge are the most ancient limestones of the Crimea, they are attributed to the Upper Jurassic. They form most of the peaks and plateaus of the mountainous part of the peninsula. These plateaus are called yayls in the Crimea.
Climbing the Khopkhal gorge, which is difficult to pass, we will reach the Tyrke ridge, which connects two large yailas: Demerdzhi-yaila in the southwest and Karabi-yaila in the northeast.
The surface of the yayla is devoid of woody vegetation and is a slightly hilly plain, in places covered with grasses, in places bare, rocky. Sometimes small groups of dwarf pines, twisted by continuous winds, grow in the folds of the terrain. Being in the center of the yayla, you forget that you have risen to a height of more than 1000 meters above sea level and that below you, on the southern and northern slopes of the yayla, there is a typical mountain landscape and lush vegetation. This contrast is especially noticeable after the picturesque Hopkhal Gorge with its waterfalls and ancient forest.
We already know that limestones are in most cases of biological origin and less often formed as a chemical precipitate.
The Yaylin limestones are also biogenic sediments with some admixture of sandy-clayey material, so they have a light gray color. There are also fairly pure limestones of white or light yellow color. Insignificant impurities of iron, manganese and other elements often create a beautiful pattern, which is clearly revealed when the stone is polished.
Examining limestone, one can notice organic remains contained in it in the form of shells and corals, indicating that this limestone is of marine and biological origin. But tens of millions of years that have passed since the burial of these organisms with a calcareous skeleton at the bottom of the sea, and huge pressure caused strong changes in calcareous sediments. They have turned into a dense rock, in which the primary calcium carbonate has recrystallized, and therefore the shell valves and corals enclosed in the stone merge with the total mass of the stone and are sometimes difficult to distinguish.
Such dense recrystallized limestones, which can be easily polished, are called marble-like.
An array of gray marble-like limestones, located near Yalta, is being mined, and the extracted stone is used to make various handicrafts: writing instruments, table decorations and other small things. Slabs for facing buildings and some architectural decorations are also made from marble-like limestone.
In the Crimea there is also real marble, the deposits of which are located near the city of Balaklava. The pattern of Crimean marble is elegant and whimsical, thanks to the remains of shells and corals contained in it, and the combination of delicate yellowish tones with bright red and brown hues gives a special charm to the polished surface of this stone. Facing slabs were made of Crimean marble, decorating some of the Moscow metro lobbies. Perhaps the first man in the history of stone culture used marble as a material for sculptural works and architectural decorations. For these purposes, marble was used in ancient Greece.
In tsarist Russia, marble was almost never mined. This stone was imported mainly from Greece and went almost exclusively for decoration. royal palaces and dwellings of the rich.
Now, in our time of grandiose construction projects of communism and the flourishing of Soviet culture and art, marble, more than ever in history, has found wide application in our country. At the same time, we use domestic marble, which is distinguished by the beauty of the pattern and the variety of colors. Our marble can be seen in the halls of the Moscow Palace of Science - University. Lomonosov, in the wonderful palaces of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, at the facilities of the Volga-Don Canal named after. V. I. Lenin and on many other buildings in various cities of our Motherland.
Marble is widely used in industry. As an excellent insulating material, it is used to make switchboards and various insulating parts. Marble-like and generally dense pure limestones are used in the metallurgical industry as fluxes.
Marble is easy to process: sawing, carving, grinding and polishing. However, marble products, although durable, are not eternal. In this regard, marble is in many ways inferior to igneous rocks.
Academician A.E. Fersman calculated that, on average, a layer of marble 1 millimeter thick dissolves per century. On the time scale of human life, this is an insignificant value, although it should not be neglected. On the scale of geological time, marble and limestone are considered as easily soluble rocks. Multiply, for example, a value of 1 millimeter by ten thousand times and you get a layer of 10 meters. A layer of this thickness will dissolve within one million years, and in the history of the earth this is a very short period of time, approximately one three thousandth of the time that has elapsed since the beginning of the formation of the earth's crust. At the same time, it should be taken into account that in the relevant natural conditions limestone rocks can dissolve much more intensively than one millimeter per hundred years.
Limestone is especially quickly dissolved by waters containing carbonic acid, which is secreted in large quantities by the roots of plants; it dissolves in other natural acids.
Pay attention to the surface of the Crimean yayla. Here in some places there are funnel-shaped depressions and dips. Sometimes in the center of the failure there is a channel that goes deeper. The exposed limestones in the low places of the yayla have a peculiar hummocky surface and from a distance resemble a herd of grazing sheep. All this is the result of the dissolution of limestone by surface waters, a phenomenon called karst.
Penetrating through the cracks into the depths of the limestone massif, the water continues to dissolve the limestone, forming channels through which sometimes rapidly flow underground rivers. Over time, galleries and huge caves form on their way. Sometimes water reappears on the surface in the form of powerful springs. Such springs, for example, include the well-known Ayan spring in the Crimea, located on the northern spurs of the Chatyrdag (Tent Mountain) and supplying the city of Simferopol with water.
We started our acquaintance with limestone and marble of the Crimea in the Khopkhal gorge. It would seem that it would not be worth taking the reader 20 kilometers from the Alushta highway to show him the limestone and acquaint him with the marbles of the Crimea, which can be easily seen on Ai-Petri and in the vicinity of Yalta, without even getting off the bus. But in this little known corner - the Hopkhal Gorge - during one route we have the opportunity to observe almost all the main varieties of sedimentary rocks - conglomerates, sandstones, clays and limestones. In addition, in the Hopkhal gorge we will see one of beautiful waterfalls Crimea, fed by underground karst waters, which, upon reaching the surface, release a huge amount of lime in the form of a light porous mass called calcareous tuff. And, finally, 5-6 kilometers northeast of the gorge is Karabi-yayla, which has the most pronounced forms of karst processes.
We have quite fully characterized marble and said little about limestone, from which, in fact, dense marbles are formed.
There is a lot of limestone in the Crimea, whole massifs in the mountains and huge strata of gently inclined layers in the steppe part of the peninsula are composed of it.
Widely known both in the Crimea and outside it are white, fairly dense limestones dating back to the end of the Cretaceous. They consist of calcareous skeletons of microscopic corals - bryozoans with an insignificant admixture of sandy-clay material. More often these rocks are called Inkerman stone, since it is mined in large quantities near Inkerman.
Durable Inkerman stone is widely used as a wall and facing building material. The hero-city Sevastopol, revived from the ruins, has been turned into one of the most beautiful cities country, and the buildings of this city owe their beauty to the snow-white or slightly yellowish Inkerman stone, with which the walls of all the buildings of the city are lined.
In the area of Simferopol, Evpatoria, Kerch and in many other places of the foothill and steppe Crimea, a shell stone is widespread, consisting entirely of shells cemented by calcite, which once inhabited the shallow seas of the Tertiary period, covering the territory of the modern Crimean steppes and foothills.
Shell rock is a porous rock that is easily sawn into bars with an ordinary saw. It has incomparably less strength than Inkerman stone, and therefore houses are built from it one, rarely two stories high.
In Crimea, a brick building is as rare as a wooden one. All the cities of Crimea are built of stone, born at the bottom of the sea as a result of the centuries-old activity of marine organisms.
Although there are no brick buildings in the Crimea, bricks are produced in significant quantities for stoves, factory chimneys, and other building purposes. For the production of bricks, rock is also of sedimentary origin - clay. The clays formed at the beginning of the Cretaceous are considered the best for making bricks, roofing tiles, pipes and various pottery. The reserves of these clays are enormous, their layers extend from Balaklava along the foothills of the entire Crimea to Feodosia.
The reserves of marls are also huge - rocks of sedimentary origin, which are a cemented mixture of clay and calcareous particles. Marls are the main raw material for the manufacture of cement, which is not yet produced in the Crimea.
Limestones and marls are not rich in minerals. Sometimes they contain crystals of calcite and gypsum, which, however, do not differ in either beauty or size. In clays, one can find many beautiful gypsum crystals in the form of large roses or in the form of a dovetail. There are also round nodules of spherosiderite, accumulations and crusts of golden cubic crystals of pyrite. However, all these minerals are not rare, we can meet them everywhere and therefore we will not look for them in these rocks.
Terrigenous and biogenic sediments, as a rule, are poor in minerals visible to the naked eye, but when examining these rocks under a microscope, a mineralogist finds here a no less rich collection than in igneous rocks.
By examining sedimentary rocks under a microscope and identifying the microscopic crystals and fragments contained in them, geologists often manage to identify the land area from which these particles entered the ancient seas, and thus recreate the geography of the distant geological past.
Of exceptional interest are sedimentary rocks for those who wish to learn the history of the Crimea and the development of living organisms that inhabited its seas and land. Based on the fossilized remains of animals and plants, one can relatively fully and accurately reproduce the picture of life and landscapes that existed millions of years ago.
We do not intend to remain aloof from the geological history of the Crimea and will devote several pages to this issue at the end of the essay. Now let's get acquainted with the last and mineralogically most interesting group of sedimentary rocks - rocks of chemical origin.
We have already mentioned the processes of formation of various chemical precipitations, and now we will take a closer look at their variety - Kerch ores.
To do this, we will have to go again to the Kerch Peninsula, to the village of Arshintsevo, located on the steep bank of the Kerch Strait near the city of Kerch.
Arshintsevo is located in a large basin, bounded by a chain of low hills.
If you climb to the top of one of the hills, it is not difficult to see that a ridge of these heights borders a hollow on all sides with a village, mines and collective farm fields located in it; only in the east is it open towards the Kerch Strait.
The relief of the eastern and northern parts The Kerch Peninsula is characterized by such basins, surrounded by ring-shaped chains of hills, composed of very strong limestones.
These limestones are made up of tiny corals we already know, called bryozoans. One can see foliated formations dotted with the smallest cells and tubules that served as a home for the microscopic organisms of these corals.
More than 10 million years ago, at the beginning of the Meotic century of the Tertiary period, the Kerch Peninsula was flooded by a shallow sea, and although the territory of the peninsula is significantly removed from the mountainous Crimea, where powerful mountain-building processes took place, the action of these forces also affected here. The earth layers of the Kerch Peninsula are also folded, although very flat. And where the crest of the folds rose, the bottom of the Maeotic sea became shallow, and in some places the rise was so significant that islands were formed. Along these islands, in shallow water, bryozoan corals lived. Gradually more and more more islands, bryozoan reefs increased in size, and thus, over time, lagoons formed, surrounded by a chain of bryozoan reefs.
In subsequent geological epochs, the lagoons were filled with more and more sediments, consisting either of sandy-clay material, or of numerous shell valves. Thanks to small, but incessant fluctuations of the land, the lagoons now shallowed, then became deeper. The climate at that time was temperate, with little rainfall.
Several million years passed, and the hot subtropical humid climate of the Cimmerian Age set in. Lagoons by that time were shallow, slightly saline basins, separated from each other by a chain of islands and peninsulas.
The hot humid climate caused a lush flowering of vegetation and intensive chemical decomposition of the land rocks surrounding the lagoons. The banks of the lagoons, overgrown with dense forests and swamps, saturated the streams and rivers flowing into the lagoons with organic and inorganic acids.
These waters leached iron, manganese and other elements from the surrounding rocks and soils and carried them in a dissolved state into the lagoons. In the lagoons, when the fresh waters of the land mixed with the brackish waters of the lagoons, the dissolved salts of iron and other elements precipitated, mixing with the silty and sandy particles brought by the same streams. Various organic residues brought by the waters from the land decomposed at the bottom of the lagoons, providing abundant food for a variety of microorganisms, which in turn served as food for mollusks. Therefore, molluscs in the Cimmerian age were especially successful in breeding, differing in the diversity of species and reaching large sizes. In addition to shellfish, the lagoons were inhabited by fish and seals.
So for thousands of years there was an accumulation of silts saturated with iron at the bottom of the lagoons in the Cimmerian age.
Later, as a result of the general uplift of the land, the sea receded from the lagoons, the ferruginous sediments condensed, various minerals of iron, manganese, phosphorus, barium and other elements were formed in them, and they turned into iron ore of sedimentary chemical origin.
We will begin our acquaintance with the Kerch ores and their minerals from the coastal cliff of the Kerch Strait in Arshintsevo.
To do this, you need to go to the park of culture and recreation and go down the iron stairs to the beach of the Kerch Strait. Taking the direction to the south, you will soon see a forty-meter cliff wall, in places completely vertical, in places broken into giant steps by landslides. Layers of sedimentary rocks are clearly visible on the wall: on light yellow limestone, consisting of the smallest shells and their fragments, a dark brown layer of ore lies mixed with a certain amount of clay and fine sand, and above it gray layers of sands and clays, younger than ore deposits, and at the very top of the cliff, light brown loams lie in a continuous cover.
We are interested in ore and its minerals, and we will deal with it.
The brown friable mass - iron ore - consists entirely of concentrically shell-like brittle brown balls called oolites. These balls, like crystals, grew in the ferruginous silt. Apparently, the silty particles prevented the formation of real crystals, and the ferruginous solutions concentrated layer by layer around various small particles, penetrating the clay mass of silt.
These oolites are composed of a mixture of various iron hydroxides, called the mineral limonite, with an admixture of a clay substance.
Among the brown oolites, black shiny ones sometimes come across, as if varnished. Their color indicates that these oolites, in addition to iron, contain a significant amount of manganese.
Among the oolitic ore mass are round, usually black on the surface, large nodules, sometimes reaching several tens of centimeters in diameter.
Similar formations are familiar to us from Karadag - these are nodules, but, in contrast to Karadag, of sedimentary origin. They arise in a dense ore mass, when solutions saturated with various mineral substances slowly circulating in the oolitic ore concentrate around some inclusions and deposit new minerals.
Some of the concretions are a kind of natural caskets containing beautiful crystals. However, many such caskets will have to be opened in order to find one or two that have a rich content.
Try to crack the concretion with a light hammer blow. Sometimes a cavity of considerable size is found in it, as if lined with black velvet with a bluish tint, with a delicate coating that stains the fingers. Often on this layer, like diamonds on black velvet, small transparent plates sparkle; black plaque is the mineral vad (manganese hydroxide), and sparkling plates are crystals of calcite known to us.
It happens that instead of a velvety coating, the nodule cavity is lined with a black, shiny, very dense crust; this is also manganese hydroxide - psilomelane.
Often in the cavities of nodules there are various minerals of phosphorus - phosphates, which are compounds of iron, manganese, calcium, phosphorus, oxygen and water.
Just like the zeolites of Karadag, these phosphates are famous throughout the Union. Nowhere else is there such a variety, such beautiful and large crystals. Many of the phosphates were first discovered here and given local names. Most often, brown crystals of oxykerchenite are found in concretions or in shell cavities, now separate long ones, now many short ones, directed in all directions, like hedgehog needles. Less common are dark blue, almost black, flat crystals of gamma and beta kerchenite. Relatively less common are dull green crystals of alpha-kerchenite. Occasionally you can find small bright light green needles of anapait.
In addition to clearly crystalline phosphates, the so-called earthy varieties of them are often found, which are a powdery mass, often mixed with iron ore. These phosphates include accumulations of canary-yellow mithridatite and green bosphorite occurring in the form of thin veins. In the cracks and voids of the ore one can find thin coatings and nodules of bright blue earthy beta-kerchenite. In those parts of the ore that have been exposed to atmospheric oxygen for a long time, outgrowths of the mineral picite, similar to carpenter's glue, are found.
All these minerals containing phosphorus are additional to iron minerals of ore deposits. When steel is smelted from cast iron, the phosphorus contained in it passes into slag, which can be used as a fertilizer in agriculture.
Most of the concretions do not have cavities and are a dense grayish-green mass consisting of clayey siderite, around which manganese, phosphorus, and some other minerals are concentrated.
When raking loose ore, we may come across brown fossilized bones of some vertebrate animals - these are the remains of seals that once lived in the Cimmerian lagoons. The bone tissue of these residues is completely replaced by phosphorus compounds and is a mineral phosphorite.
Less common are white bones and remains of woody vegetation. Taking such a fossil in your hand, you will be surprised by its great weight. This is a mineral barite (barium sulfate), which completely replaced the tissue of organic residues. Such mineral formations are called metamorphoses.
There is little barite in the Kerch ores, and therefore it is of no practical importance here, but large deposits of this mineral are being developed to obtain barium, which is used in the chemical industry and medicine.
In the loose ore mass, individual gypsum crystals of exceptionally regular cut are often found, and although this mineral is not rare, one should still take the opportunity to collect a collection of gypsum crystals here.
Finishing the collection of minerals in the Kerch ores, it must be said that we did not get acquainted with all the minerals contained in them. There are a number of minerals that can only be detected in the ore mass under a microscope, and there are minerals and varieties of ores that are found in the deeper zones of the deposit; they can only be extracted by drilling or sinking rather deep mine workings.
The ores exposed in the coastal cliff were not always the same as we see them now. Prolonged exposure to external forces has largely changed the mineralogical composition and physical properties of ores; some minerals disappeared and new ones appeared. Such changes can sometimes take place over a very short term. For example, during exploration work carried out at the Kerch deposits, from the depths, where the ore layers are saturated with groundwater and where atmospheric oxygen did not penetrate, a very dense, greenish-brown color, the so-called "tobacco" ore, was extracted. Some varieties of this ore changed color in a few days and turned into a loose brown ore, like the one we saw in the coastal cliff.
So sometimes the change in the mineralogical composition of a stone that finds itself in new conditions, for example, in an environment rich in oxygen in the air and devoid of water, proceeds unusually quickly.
Having finished collecting minerals and ores in the coastal cliff, you should familiarize yourself with the mine, which is located 6 kilometers from the village (you can go by bus). We recommend, by agreement with the administration of the iron ore plant, to see the quarries where ore is mined, as well as factories where ore is enriched and agglomerated (from loose to lumpy by sintering at high temperature), in a word, to get an idea of both the whole process of preparing natural mineral raw materials for smelting metal from it.
Kerch iron ores have been known for a very long time. In ancient times, the inhabitants of the Crimea already knew about the ores. Crimean archaeologists tell us about this, who, during excavations near Planerny in the ancient burial grounds of the Slavic tribes, found pieces of blue paint, which turned out to be the mineral beta-kerchenite from the Kerch ores. These ancient burials date back to the 8th century AD.
The first descriptions of the Kerch ores belong to travelers of the 18th century, but this information was fragmentary and did not give an idea of the reserves and quality of the ores.
For many years, Kerch ores did not find practical application. And only starting from 1894, various entrepreneurs, both Russian and foreign, tried to develop the Kerch deposits. However, due to extremely low technology and fierce competition, these capitalist enterprises often failed.
Only after the October Revolution, the metallurgical industry began to develop rapidly on the basis of Kerch ores.
The Kdmyshburunsky mine and the metallurgical plant named after A. Voikov. Every year the extraction of ores grew and the production of iron and steel increased.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi invaders completely destroyed the mine and the factory, completely destroyed the workers' settlements; the city of Kerch suffered no less.
After the war, the mine and its village were completely restored in a short time. Now it is a whole city with many large houses, a stadium, a park, a club. The mine, concentrating and sintering plants use the latest machines. Ore mining is fully mechanized.
Iron ores are not the only chemical sedimentary formations in the Crimea. Even in our time, before our eyes there is an accumulation of chemical precipitation.
There are many salt lakes in Crimea, many of them of marine origin. These lakes in the recent geological past were bays of the Black and Azov Seas, which, over time, separated from the sea by sandbars and spits washed by sea waves, and turned into coastal lakes.
However, these lakes have not lost their connection with the sea. Through the narrow sandy spits, sea water seeps easily, replenishing the lake, the waters of which are continuously evaporating. Thus, the concentration of salts in the lake water gradually increases.
In hot summer, when the water evaporating from the lakes does not have time to be compensated by the sea water seeping through the spit, the concentration of salts in the lake water increases so much that crystals of these salts form. Salt crystals are the first to precipitate, covering the bottom of a shallow lake and its coast with a white crust. In some Crimean lakes, self-planted table salt has long been mined.
In addition to table salt (sodium chloride), the lakes also contain other salts: magnesium chloride, sodium sulfate (Glauber's salt), calcium sulfate (gypsum) and some other valuable salts.
The huge bay is especially rich in salts Sea of Azov- Eastern Sivash. It communicates with the sea with only one narrow strait in the Genichesk area and therefore resembles a large coastal lake, separated from the sea by a narrow slanting 120 kilometers long - the Arabat Spit.
The bottom silt of some lakes of the Crimea has valuable medicinal properties and is widely used by many sanatoriums and mud baths of the Crimea.
In the Crimea, on the Kerch Peninsula, there is a deposit of fossil salts, for example, a rather significant deposit of gypsum near the village of Marfovka. A layer of gypsum up to 4-5 meters thick is being developed, the extracted gypsum is transported to Kerch, where alabaster is produced from it, which is widely used in construction work and medicine. However, the gypsum layer of this deposit is heavily contaminated with clay impurities and consists of small, tightly pressed crystals. It is quite difficult to find beautiful large transparent crystals, and therefore one will have to be content with samples of this mineral collected in ore deposits.
This can complete our brief acquaintance with the main sedimentary rocks of the Crimea, their most interesting minerals and the processes of destruction and creation that created this group of rocks, the most common in the Crimea.
In the section on the question Where do the stones come from?? given by the author Calculate the best answer is What a dumb question!! ! What stones?
1. If we are talking about natural stones, then everything depends on the type of stones. Some stones were formed from liquid lava, some were formed by pressing in the strata of geological deposits, such as granite or sandstone ... some are formed by crystallization.
2. If we are talking about stones that form in our body (in the kidneys, in the gallbladder ...), then this is a completely different story! These stones are formed by crystallization. A person prone to the formation of stones in bile or urine has high concentrations of various salts (urates, oxalates ...) and as soon as a center of crystallization appears (it can be some kind of microbial body, or a piece of epithelium or some other grain of sand) as around salt immediately begins to settle. Most of the growing grains of sand are washed out of the bile (urine) excretory tract, without having had time to grow to a decent size. But some manage to get stuck in the bladder (bile or urinary) or in the renal ducts, pelvis, and grow. This is how stones in the kidneys and bile ducts are formed.
3. If your question is about stones in the garden, ask your neighbor. Chances are he gave them to you!
Source: About the time to scatter and collect stones, read in "Ecclesiastes"
Vladislav Yun
Guru
(4005)
Aha, that's what you're talking about!! Well, I can’t say anything but general phrases here. In my opinion, it goes like this:
1. Rocks are destroyed, with mudflows, blocks rush down into the valleys. In the valleys, under the influence of temperature, humidity, etc., the blocks are destroyed into smaller fragments. This is how stones appear in the near-mountain regions.
2. Decomposing further into smaller fragments, they turn into sand and clay, which are very easily transported by water even deeper into the lowlands, where they settle. The lower layers are compressed, again solid rocks are formed, which, again, as a result of tectonic shifts, one day appear on the surface. Either all the waters of the rivers are carried to the surface by washing away !! And again the process is repeated. Again, the blocks break up into cobblestones, into pebbles, into sand ... all in a circle.
3. A person transports gravel and wakes up on the ground
4. Animals can tolerate
5. Rains wash out the soil, exposing previously applied stones. There are no more free characters!!
Excellent rocky beaches with small pebbles, pleasant for the feet, can be found in almost all resorts in Sochi: Lazarevskoye, Adler, Khosta, Central. The entrance to the water on these beaches is different, but in the most popular places for recreation, as a rule, there are no large stones with sharp edges that you can hurt your feet on.
Known for rocky beaches and part of the resorts belonging to Gelendzhik. So, pebble beaches prevail in the villages of Arkhipo-Osipovka and Divnomorskoye. The beaches on Thin Cape, in the sanatorium "Blue Wave", boarding houses "Chernomorets" and "Kavkaz" are also strewn with pebbles with a small amount of sand. The quiet village of Dzhankhot, located not far from Gelendzhik, can also boast a fairly clean rocky beach.
V Tuapse district lovers of pebbles are better in the village of Novomikhailovsky or Dzhubga. In Lermontovo, the beaches are strewn with pebbles mixed with sand, and in Olginka - small washed pebbles.
You can find rocky beaches near Anapa. Stones and large pebbles, for example, are strewn with the beaches of "Vysokiy Bereg" and "Small Bay". In some places, the entrance to the sea is quite dangerous, especially in wild areas.
For those who like to relax more pebble beaches, you can also go to Black Sea coast to Abkhazia.
Sandy beaches on the Black Sea
A good sandy beach is located in the city of Gelendzhik. It is 500 meters long and 30 meters wide. There are awnings, changing rooms and showers, a variety of beach equipment for rent. Entrance to the sea central beach Gelendzhik without sharp holes, but the depth is growing quite quickly.
Many sandy beaches are located in Anapa and not far from it. Dzhemete Beach, which runs along Pionersky Prospekt, is strewn with fine, pleasant sand and has a smooth entrance to the sea, so it’s good for older people or families to relax there.
The only negative is that there are a lot of people at the peak of the season, and the sea in the coastal zone at the end of summer often looks untidy due to a large number.
An excellent sandy beach is also located on the territory children's camp"Eaglet" in the Tuapse region and adjacent campsites. There is no promenade and a lot of entertainment, but the sea, even in season, is often very clean. When entering the water, the depth increases very slowly.
In Ukraine, most of the beaches are sandy. Fans of fine sand are best to relax in Yalta, Evpatoria, Feodosia or Sevastopol.
Sandy beaches are most loved by vacationers, in comparison with pebble or other types of them. Exactly sandy beaches ideal for holidays with children and for those who are learning to swim. Clean bottom and soft sand - what else do you need for have a great holiday by the water? On the territory of Russia there are many excellent fine sandy beaches.
Black Sea beaches
Crimea is so loved by many vacationers precisely for its excellent sandy beaches. Clear water and a bottom without sharp stones is another reason why a vacation in the Crimea will be very comfortable.
The beaches of Donuzlav are considered the best. The sand protects coastline from all kinds of damage, such as erosion and faults, therefore the integrity of these beaches is protected by law: it is forbidden to take sand from there for any purpose. The beaches of Donuzlav start from the village of Mirny and stretch towards Evpatoria on the one hand, and on the other - to the Baikal Spit. Settlements that are located on the gently sloping beaches of Donuzlav: Chernomorskoye, Olenevka, Zaozernoye, Popovka, Novo-Fedorovka, Stormovoye, Mezhvodnoye, Cape Tarkhankut is also located on this territory. The beaches of Kalamitsky Bay are considered the best for families with children, as the water warms up quickly and they are quite shallow.
If you prefer beach holiday with a tent, then go to the villages of Olenevka or Mezhvodnoe. But remember that these are places for those who prefer green tourism. People monitor the cleanliness of the places where they set up camp.
sandy beaches in Krasnodar Territory located in the area locality Anapa. The sand is so very beautiful, golden and fine, and also very clean. The beaches in Djemet are also great option for families with children, as the bottom there is quite flat. The word "dzhemete" itself means "golden sands".
Caspian, Azov and Baltic seas
The Sea of Azov is very shallow, and its entire coast is sandy. Also this sea is very warm.
The Caspian Sea is also famous for its sandy beaches. The best sandy beaches are located in the Volga delta, where Astrakhan stands. Often there are thermal springs near the beaches.
Very beautiful beach located on the Baltic Sea curonian spit in Kaliningrad. The beach is very wide and the sand is fine and light. Surround this splendor pine forests. But the swimming season here does not last long.
lake beaches
Sandy beaches are also characteristic of lakes, where some people prefer to rest on the sea. The most famous lake in Russia is Baikal. The most beautiful Baikal dunes, long wide beaches, pure water… The only negative is that the water in Baikal is quite cold, the lake warms up for a pleasant swim not every year.
Lake Onega in Karelia has very beautiful sandy beaches. They are small but meet all the time.
Seliger - this place has become very popular as a tourist area. There are many beaches around the lake. There are both budget and luxury accommodation options.
