Short Stuff: Trovants | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. sitting in for Dave and this is short. stuff about Trovants or Trovent or Tro. I bet it's Travant. I don't know why I. didn't look it up, but I'm going to go. with that. It's got to be. It doesn't. matter. No one knows how to pronounce. it. No one outside of Romania. And the. reason I just mentioned Romania is. because in the Carpathian area of.

Romania, there's a specific kind of rock. that has captured the imagination of any. human who's seen it because they are. very weird looking. Yeah. In fact, they. look like they're growing smaller rocks. out of the bigger rocks. Not supposed to. happen to anybody outside the field of. geology, but they are. And so some. people are like, "These rocks are. living. They move around. They're. They're gonna They're going to kill you. and your entire family if if given the. chance. Yeah, they have babies. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Did you look up some.

of the pictures of them? Yeah. They're. awesome. They're they're pretty smooth. looking. Uh they're lumpy. Mhm. Um Yeah. It looks, you know, look up a picture of. these things, you know, not if you're. driving obviously, but so you can get it. in your mind's eye. They can be they can. be little. They can be smaller than an. inch uh and just weigh a few grams or. they can be very very large like. boulderesque like 15 ft high, several. tons in weight. Um and people since the. 18th century have been like what are.

these things? They look like dinosaur. eggs or alien pods. What's happening. here? Yeah. And um they were wrong on. both accounts. They really are rocks. They do grow. They do kind of calve off. baby rocks, but they're not alive in any. sense that we understand it. They're. rocks. That's right. Uh when they. started getting serious and we're like, "Can guys, can we move past alien pods. and dinosaur eggs and really try and. figure this out?" I took it to be alien. pods is what people are saying on the. internet now. Well, probably. So, uh.

because that's where all that stuff. takes place. But, um when they finally. got serious, they were like, "You know. what's going on here? This is a. concretion." Uh, and a concretion is um. something that starts out as a little. pebble or something or a leaf maybe and. then starts getting depositions maybe. sandstone, other kinds of grit and. minerals washed along a river just. building up and sort of cementing almost. like a snowball rolling downhill. Yeah. That is a concretion. Yes. And in Oslo. in 2008, the International Geological.

Conference Congress man said the parties. at that place. Yeah. That's uh the rocks. that they were doing, I'm sure. Yeah. Uh. and uh they said, "No, we don't think. it's a concretion at all." I don't know. who they were scolding because I'm sure. all the members were the ones who came. up with the idea that it was a. concretion, but they said, "No, this is. a this is different than that." Um a. concretion is a rock where you have a. nucleus and then over time sediments are.

deposited over it and it grows and grows. and grows. It's understandable why. people said that um Trovants were. concretions for a very long time. But. then somebody thought to cut one open. and when they did there they they said. there's no nucleus here. And with a a. typical um concretion rock, the. sediments are whatever got attracted to. it. So it's made up of a bunch of. different stuff. Turns out Trovants are. made entirely of sandstone and in. particular they're made of calcium.

carbonate sandstone. So they're like, "These are not concretions. What are. they? We're not entirely certain, but. we're going to take a stab at explaining. them." Yeah. Uh and they closed that. session of the International Geological. Congress in Oslo by chanting open bar, open. bar. And they all got busy. Um so they. in Oslo they hypothesized. uh that the minerals were uh carried by. a prehistoric river along these little.

sandy sediments and formed a kind of a. slurry solution uh like you said of. mainly calcium carbonate uh along with. calcium carbonate. You can also get um. sandstone from iron oxide and quartz but. in this case the sandstone is calcium. carbonate. Yeah precisely. And so they. figured out, okay, some sort of. compression took place. The force of. gravity can push these things together. And then apparently they were like even. more pushed together by um earthquakes.

that took place uh back in I think the. middleosene sub epoch, which as everyone. knows is about 5.3 million years ago. And they smooshed the sandstone. together. And if you look at a lot of. the Trovants, especially the parts that. are coming out of the ground, yeah, it. just looks like a smooshed normal rock, right? Like pretty large, but it it. doesn't it doesn't look weird. What. makes it look weird is the spherical. shaped rocks growing out of the other.

rocks. And that actually has to do with. the way that these rocks actually grow. And I say, Chuck, we take a break and we. come back and talk about how they grow. after this. Let's do it. [Music]. [Applause].

[Music]. [Applause]. [Music]. So, another little oddity here we have. to talk about is the fact that these. things secrete cement. Um, and this is. sort of what lends people to think like. these things are alive. Mhm. Um it's. after a big rain. They will absorb the. minerals from that rain and then those. minerals come in contact with the the. chemicals that are already in that stone. that um that calcium carbonate and the.

other stuff and there's a pressurized. reaction that makes the rock grow. It. grows in girth and that sandstone is. very porous. And so it's those places in. between. It's not happening like the. whole thing's not growing at once. There'll be like a little pocket where. this stuff uh you know gets lodged and. expands and then it it literally grows. off little pieces and they can fall off. and that's when people are like look it. it had a little rock baby. It had a. baby. Yeah. So I mean that's it. That's.

how they grow rocks. A chemical reaction. that creates pressure in the rock that's. so strong and they're so porous that it. can actually bubble up and then over. time as it grows and grows and grows it. can take on a spherical shape. Right. So. that's pretty amazing. What would be. more amazing is if you could see this. happen in real time, but you can't. because the human lifespan is fairly. short compared to how long it would take. to watch a Trovant grow, right? Yeah. I. think uh the deposition rate is about an. inch and a half, maybe a couple of.

inches every year. No, every hundred. years. No, every 500 years. No, every. thousand years. Yes. Yeah. So, an inch. and a half to two inches every 1,000. years. Um that has not stopped certain. patient people from sitting there and. looking at them from a long time though, right? Yeah, for sure. There was one. researcher who said that they filmed. travants for two weeks and said that not. not that they were growing but that they. were moving. This is another thing about. it too. People say these rocks move. And.

again, this is in Romania in the. Carpathian region. People have lived. there for a really long time. They've. lived around these rocks for a really. long time. They've been observing them. for a really long time. So, you can't. exactly poo poo some of the things that. they've observed about these very. special rocks. Yeah. Um, and apparently. walking or moving is is part of them. So, this researcher went and said, "I. filmed this thing moving a tenth of an. inch, 2 and a half millimeters in two. weeks." And um, don't ask me for the.

film or any follow-up question. Yeah. He's like, "So, what do you think of. that?" And everyone's like, "Oh, boy. This guy does he not know there's an. open bar in the back? Right. So, the. thing is they're not discounting it. fully that these things can move, but. the rocks wouldn't be moving. Say like. um the heating and cooling of the soil. could cause some sort of movement of the. rocks, moving them along. And there are. rocks that that move. They don't move by. their own locomotion. There's not a rock.

in the world that moves by itself. Even. if it's rolling downhill, it's it's. under the force of gravity. Um, but. there are rocks in uh oh, Death Valley. I think the sailing stones. Have you. seen them? Uh, yeah. I feel like we. talked about those in a video. It. sounded familiar. Or maybe I just had. heard of them. But they they leave a. track behind them. They are definitely. moving. Yeah. And they're too big for a. human to push as like a prank or a joke. like the crop circles were. Um, and they.

figured out that like very thin layers. of ice form on the floor of Death Valley. sometimes. And as it um as it uh melts, it breaks into little sheets that. actually kind of move the rocks along. for distances. Amazing. Uh another. pretty cool thing that they found out at. uh in Oslo, where else is they were. like, "Hey, how do we explain the fact. that we have found these fossils in here. though, these marine fossils? There's by. valves in here. There's gastropod. fossils sometimes." and they said, "Well, the best we can come up with, and.

this makes total sense, is that the area. where they're found used to be an. ancient marine environment, uh, because. they're finding those fossils in there, and also that calcium carbonate, and we. kind of been holding on to this till the. end. Um, that is the essential. ingredient in marine shells. So, it. seems pretty clear it was probably a. marine environment in ancient times.". Boom. Pretty good. That was the fact of the. podcast. Yeah. And they're most of them. are found at just not even just Romania, but this one sand quarry, right? Yeah,

I've seen both. I've seen them at the. you can find them around the Carpathia. region, but there's definitely a huge. population of them in um what's now the. Trovance Museum Natural Reserve in Valia. County, Romania. And there's a village. in particular, uh Odisani Village, which. is very well known for it. So much so. that I think that's where the idea that. they can only be found there comes from. But they're still I mean you're not. going to find them in like Peru or. Zimbabwe or something, but they're just.

in this very limited area of the world. in Romania. That's right. So shout out. to the Otasani village and the other one. is the Costesty Village. Very nice, Chuck. Uh and I guess since I said very. nice, I don't have anything else. Do. you? Uh no, we should just let people. know they're they're protected. Like so. you can't go and break them and run off. with them. Uh UNESCO is protecting these. things now. Do not do that. Yeah, don't. do that. Um leave nature alone. Yeah, that's right. But I have nothing.

else aside from that. Okay, short stuff. is. out. Stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart Radio. For more. podcasts, iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you listen to your favorite shows. [Music].