In my previous post (@fairyberry/on-ancient-trails-tata-castle-surrounded-by-waters-english-garden) I described the Tata Castle and the artifical ruins of English Garden. Later on Friday evening we camped in the Geological Garden of Tata, where our friend, Zoltán the park guide talked late into the night about his expedition to Ecuador and the "Tayos" cave system (Google: Tayos, Juan Moricz) there. Zoltán was there as a geologist investigating the rocks, clarifying the truth and falsity of certain theories.
There are many tales about the secrets of the Tayos cave system, about ancient metal libraries or giants and dwarves that live there. Supposedly the history of the Earth was saved by a previous civilisation, which, if it were to be made public now, mankind would have nothing to do with it. Indeed, it may contain knowledge that could be easily misused.
Almost 100% of what can be found on the internet about Tayos caves and "golden tablets" found there is bullshit laced with vulgar esotericism.
A Hungarian writer wrote a 3-volume adventure book series about it (Golden Lady Trilogy by Agnes Golenya Purisaca), and the stories of Indiana Jones movies are also connected to it (I believe the character of Indiana Jones is based on Juan Moricz (Móricz János), the Hungarian who discovered the cave.)
I spent the night outside a small wooden house, like most of the others. At dawn it was very cold, I was freezing.
We woke up early, had breakfast and at 8 am Zoltan showed us around the park, showing us the traces of different geological phenomena. To an expert eye, the rock layers look like the pages of a huge book. Each page can be hundreds of thousands or millions of years thick.
Well, let's go back to 10-20-50-100 million years earlier!
A glittery stone, closeup
Jurassic Park Geopark in Tata.
(gif source: Tenor)
I jokingly named it Jurassic Park, because the Middle Ages of geological history - Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous - are all in this one place.
Well, dinosaur bones and eggs are missing, Velociraptors don't go on the rampage either but there are some nice fossils of cockles. The deep part of the marine sediment is red because it is richer in metals (iron), the upper part is getting lighter. It comes naturally from the deeper sediments.
There are some radial cracks in the stone wall, caused by high pressure.
The layers are easy to separate. The geopark was originally a quarry, where bricks and slabs were easily extracted, sorted by size and taken to the construction sites.
Since there used to be a sea here, the sediment was originally horizontal. But earth movements have caused the layers to tilt and slip.
We climbed a steep stone staircase to the top of the hill.
The area looks like it has been ploughed by the devil. But the devil was lazy, he never liked to plough. He preferred to make earthquakes.
One excavation section was covered in the 1970s. Now it looks like an abandoned greenhouse.
Traces of human activity have been discovered here. Flintstone was quarried here thousands of years ago. But we can't see the fossilised pieces of the Flintstone family's famous barefoot-engine vehicle! 😟 Hey, Fred, you could have left some more evidence behind besides the pits! 😁
(gif source: Tenor)
Ammonite fossil. The water makes the pattern of the shell visible. This, at 12 centimeters, was a tiny creature. Zoltán told us the ammonites could sometimes grow a calcareous shell of one and a half to two metres. Their huge eyes (up to 20 cm in diameter) were already highly developed and they could see in 3 dimensions. They were, of course, rabid predators with parrot beak-like mouths. Today's only descendant of the ammonites is the Nautilus, also known as snail-shell octopus.
Memorial plaques, 1st: For the Centenary of the Hungarian Geological Institute in 1969. The second plaque is recalling the original function of the site, which was mining. Mining ceased then the Geological Garden was established in 1958. Protected under nature conservation!
Now, let's go to some botanic curiosity.
This greenery is a miniature bamboo forest. Bamboo is a water-intensive plant that reproduces very easily and becomes invasive if not kept under control. It is a grass, and the fastest growing in the world.
Silk Pine - its needles are very delicate to the touch.
Since Zoltán has been running the Geological Garden (for about 15 years), he has planted a variety of special pines in a previously neglected area of the park.
The smallest pinecones on Earth
A bigger one (silk pine)
Succulents.
Unfortunately, there was no time to visit the cactus collection, but we saw a lot of different kinds of stonecrops. Some of the plants were bought.
In the spring, a wide variety of flowers bloom in the park. Now we only see the drying leaves of the irises. We must come back here in April!
I didn't take any photos of the minerals, stones and jewellery available there, but I did add a few stones to my collection.