Geological Natural Monuments of Ukraine: Types and Notable Sites

Geological natural monuments are natural formations linked to geological structure and to various geological processes. Geological monuments are protected by the state.

What are the geological natural monuments of Ukraine?

Geological natural monuments are protected natural formations that record the Earth's structure and history, and in Ukraine they are grouped into six recognised types. Each type preserves evidence of a different geological process, from the layering of rock strata to the movement of the Earth's crust.

• Stratigraphic — exposures of rock characteristic of a particular geological age;
• Palaeontological — rocks whose layers preserve the remains of animals or plants from the distant times when the rock was forming;
• Mineralogical-petrographic — outcrops where rare minerals reach the surface of the earth;
• Tectonic — a landscape or part of a landscape from which the character of processes in the Earth's crust can be read (faults, folds, salt outcrops, volcanoes and the like);
• Geomorphological — landscapes or parts of them whose form was created by particular geological processes (caves, residual outliers, spits, canyons and so on);
• Landscape — geological formations of especially great cultural and aesthetic value.

Ukraine has 24 geological monuments of national (republican) significance and 288 of local significance. Many unique geological formations are also protected within conservation areas of other categories — for example, in the branch of the Ukrainian Steppe Reserve Stone Grave (Kamiana Mohyla) and in the complex landmark the Karadag tract.

Place names themselves bear witness to significant geological formations — the Stinka tract, the Horyn slopes, Kosova Hora, the Belbek Canyon, the residual outlier Mount Mangup-Kale and many others.

What are stratigraphic natural monuments?

Stratigraphic monuments rank first in importance among geological natural monuments. They give a picture of the sequence in which rock layers were deposited, their spatial relationships and interconnections, their relative age, and the order of events in the geological history of the Earth.

Stratigraphic studies and the samples taken from geological monuments are used to compile and refine geological maps and to carry out geological prospecting and exploration for mineral resources. The classic stratigraphic landmarks are located in the Donetsk region.

• The Kleban-Byk exposures in the Kostiantynivka district, on the left bank of the Kleban-Byk reservoir, form a unique exposure of Lower Permian deposits.
• The Kravetska gully in the same district, near the village of Ivanopillia, ranks among reference sections of international importance.

These unique exposures of Upper Carboniferous deposits have been described in detail both in Ukraine and abroad. It is here that the fossil remains of conifer trunks (of the araucaria family) are most fully represented, caught at various stages of transformation into coal. This reference section makes it possible to gauge the value of deposits that occur in great quantity in the Permian strata of the Donets Basin.

• The Styla exposure in the Starobesheve district, on the left bank of the Mokra Volnovakha River, is widely known. This open section of the carbonate layer from the Lower Carboniferous and Upper Devonian of the Donets Basin has been recognised by scientists as a reference example for the entire planet. There are several stratigraphic monuments of this kind in the Donets Basin. Photo by Oleksandr Kalinin
• In the Dnipropetrovsk region, among the outstanding stratigraphic monuments is the one at Kryvyi Rih. Here rocks holding significant deposits of iron ore reach the surface.
• On the right bank of the Inhulets River near the village of Novoselivka in the Shyrokoe district, coarse-grained sandstones reach the surface, formed by the weathering of granites and gneisses.
• In the Vinnytsia region a monument of great scientific value lies in the valley of the Liadova River near the village of Yaruha in the Mohyliv-Podilskyi district, with a unique exposure of ancient sedimentary rocks 560–615 million years old. Its length is 200 metres.

Stratigraphic monuments are found in other regions as well.

What makes palaeontological natural monuments valuable?

Palaeontological natural monuments are extremely valuable to science. Palaeontological data are used to study the physical and geographical conditions of the Earth's geological past and the formation of mineral resources. Palaeozoology and palaeobotany, which study the animal and plant life of past epochs, allow geologists to determine the relative age of rocks and to refine the periods of the Earth's geological history.

Ukraine has only three palaeontological monuments of national significance, yet each of them reflects the grandeur and distinctiveness of nature from long-vanished ages — the life of the animal and plant world of the ancient Tethys Ocean.

• In 1928 scientists discovered the Odesa catacombs. These should not be confused with the well-known man-made Odesa catacombs that became famous during the Second World War. In the palaeontological Odesa catacombs, within their underground cavities, an ancient river concealed the remains of many representatives of the animal world of past epochs. By the number of vertebrate remains found, this is one of the unique sites in the world. During the research, more than 70,000 bone remains of 45 species were recovered here. These palaeontological treasures have been studied by many scholars and are now displayed not only in museums of Ukraine but also in other countries.
• In the Odesa catacombs the remains of many vertebrates have been found, including camels, foxes, hyenas, bears, antelopes and various rodents. The species composition of these animals tells us not only about the former fauna of southern Ukraine but also about the climate, the relief and the geological past of the country. Among the finds are remains of animals close to representatives of the modern fauna of Africa and North America (ostrich, marabou, porcupine and so on).

The excavated fauna of the catacombs shows that 1.5–1.8 million years ago southern Ukraine had a fairly arid climate, with no permanent snow cover in winter.

• An even more distant stretch of geological history is revealed by the national monument of the Druzhkivka petrified trees in the Donetsk region. In palaeontological riches it yields little to the Odesa catacombs. The Druzhkivka petrified trees display the grandeur of the planet's plant cover in ages past.

They tell us how the richest deposits of coal formed in the depths of the country's south. While extracting clean river sand from exposed sandstones for the needs of the Donbas metallurgical industry, workers came across these giant trees. Today a fairy-tale forest of petrified trees has been laid bare here.

Scientists have established that these rare plants were preserved in the sandstones through the displacement of the Earth's layers during mountain-building processes 20 million years ago. Individual specimens from this unique graveyard of ancient giants are exhibited in museums in Kyiv, Moscow and many other cities.

Separate groups and solitary petrified trees are also found in the exposures near the village of Lyman in the Zmiiv district of the Kharkiv region.

• In the Starobesheve district near the village of Novokaterynivka in the Donetsk region, on the left bank of the Kalmius River, an exposure of limestone is striking for its abundance of fossil marine fauna. Through the exposures of three limestone horizons, ranging in thickness from 1 to 6 metres, one can trace the alternating movements of the Earth's crust, as the sea floor rose and sank in turn. In deposits tens and hundreds of millions of years old, remains of marine fauna have been preserved, forming geological rocks of organic origin.

Among the geological natural monuments of local significance, two valuable palaeontological monuments are protected in the Zaporizhzhia region.

• One is a stretch of the Sea of Azov coast on the outskirts of Berdiansk, which is a site of ancient landslides that have formed several terraces. Skeletons of the southern elephant and other large animals of past geological epochs have been found here.
• Similar skeletons were found in the Luhovskyi sand quarry on the outskirts of the town of Tokmak.

How are mineralogical-petrographic landmarks used?

Mineralogical-petrographic landmarks are widely used in mineralogical, geochemical, stratigraphic, tectonic and volcanological research into mineral resources. The main tasks of the sciences of petrography and mineralogy are to describe and classify minerals and to clarify the conditions, laws and processes by which both individual mineral species and whole mineral groups are formed.

These monuments therefore have practical value for many branches of the national economy, for the efficient use of mineral raw materials and for establishing the signs and conditions by which they may be detected.

• A typical mineralogical-petrographic monument of national significance is the MOPR Rocks at Kryvyi Rih. These are unique surface outcrops of iron and shale rocks of the Kryvyi Rih Precambrian. No less valuable from a scientific point of view are the abandoned ancient iron-ore workings found here.
• The Karachuniv and Magnetite rocks in the Kryvyi Rih district, on the bank of the Bokovenky River, preserve relict rocks containing magnetite.

The Zaporizhzhia region has many interesting landmarks. Korsak-Mohyla is a complex of six stone outcrops of the Azov crystalline massif. The quartz outliers here contain crystals of magnetic ironstone.

• The Stone Grave (Kamiana Mohyla) in the Kuibyshevo district is one of the relict outliers of iron-silica formations, with granite ledges on the surface of the earth.
• In the Kirovohrad region, on the banks of the Southern Bug, there are exposures of graphite.
• In Zakarpattia there are surface outcrops of marble deposits.
• Striking in their exotic character are the monuments above the Naholchyk River in the Antratsyt district of the Voroshilovhrad region — the Sharp Knoll, the Naholchensko-Shevtsovskyi Knoll and the Golden Knoll, where the deposits hold quartz veins with various metal sulphides.
• In the town of Truskavets in the Lviv region, while a quarry was being worked, various minerals were discovered in the deposits, including the relatively rare ore minerals galena, sphalerite and cerussite. A very rare mineral, brunckite — a complex form of lead sulphide — was found here. This is the second deposit of brunckite on the globe.
• On the outskirts of Skole, on the left bank of the Opir River, in a quarry where light-grey Palaeocene sandstone was being worked, a new mineral was found for the first time — a variety of glauconite. In honour of the place of its discovery it was named skolite.

What do tectonic natural monuments reveal?

Tectonic natural monuments allow us to study the history of the Earth's crust — its oscillations, movements and changes — as reflected in the way rocks lie and in the present-day structure of the crust. They are concentrated mainly in the mountains. There are only two of national significance.

• In the town of Lysychansk in the Voroshilovhrad region there is a world-famous geological exposure of the North Donets landslide of tectonic origin, where layers of Middle Carboniferous rock have been laid bare. It makes an unforgettable impression — a reminder of the colossal forces that shook the Earth in the past, and of the remarkable landscapes that arose as a result.
• The tectonic landmark of the Dzhau-Tepe hill is one of the largest mud volcanoes of Crimea, located in the south-western hilly plain of the Kerch Peninsula (Crimean region). Dzhau-Tepe rises as a sharp cone to a height of 122 metres above sea level and 50 metres above the plain.

Combustible gases rising from the depths of the hill periodically push a clayey mass out to the surface through the crater. Traces of this mass flowing down can be seen on the cone. The eruption of 1909 was exceptional in its force. The mud flow reached almost 330 metres in length and 20–30 metres in width. On that occasion 128,000 tonnes of mud were ejected from the crater of the hill.

Several dozen volcanoes of varying sizes played an important role in shaping the modern relief of the Kerch Peninsula. Some tectonic monuments of local significance are also quite interesting and distinctive. One of them — the Romny salt dome (Sumy region) — is a salt dome of Devonian salt raised to the surface from deep-lying layers.

The dome fits beautifully into the calm relief around it. Besides rock salt, gypsum and diabase also reach the surface here. There are many such salt-dome outcrops in Zakarpattia in the Solotvyno area. In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, within the town of Yaremche, horizontally lying deposits form a knee-like bend so sharply expressed that it gives the impression of being the work of human hands.

Among the tectonic monuments is the hill near the town of Mukachevo, on the top of which stands an old architectural landmark — Mukachevo Castle. This residual outlier of Neogene age rises majestically in the foothills amid a broad plain. A similar outlier of volcanic origin stands in Khust in the Zakarpattia region.

Only the ruins of a fortress survive on its summit. Other tectonic objects among the geological natural monuments of Zakarpattia delight nature lovers with their unusual appearance: the rocks known as the Stone Gates, the Pierced Stone and the like. An interesting tectonic landmark is a column of volcanic tuff 10 metres high in the village of Nevytske, by the Castle Hill near Uzhhorod.

These and other geological natural monuments are of interest both for science and for tourism, and they are protected by the state.