Stone forest research trip

Just recently, I visited the geological wonder, Pobiti kamani, otherwise known as ‘The Fossil Forest’ or ‘Stone Forest’

This natural phenomenon consists of many stone columns spread over a large area in the hills above Varna on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. The limestone structures do indeed resemble a fossilised forest and no one knows exactly how they were formed. There are many theories regarding their formation but it is likely that they were created by gasses seeping through the ancient ocean floor and depositing calcium as they escaped.

As a rockwork artist and creator of imitation geological artefacts I was interested in collecting some reference pictures and getting an idea of how I could recreate parts of The Stone Forest artificially.

The following images (iPhone HDR’s) are a selection of the pictures I made on the trip. I hope they give an idea of how wonderful and inspirational the Stone Forest is.