Not just a million: about ninety million years
A million years seems like a long time, but the formation of the Troodos ophiolite complex dates back to about 90 million years ago. Then these igneous rocks…
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A million years seems like a long time, but the formation of the Troodos ophiolite complex dates back to about 90 million years ago. Then these igneous rocks…
To study oceanic crust, you do not always need a deep-sea apparatus. In Troodos, its ancient rocks are available on land. Another famous example — Ophiolite Oman, where…
Around the 14th century BC, the ship Uluburun sank off the coast of present-day Turkey. Archaeologists found copper and tin bars in the cargo: according to the description…
The microscope changes the scale of history. Coccolithophorides — Single Cell Marine Plankton — form tiny lime plates. After the death of organisms, they settle to the bottom;…
Basalt is sometimes cracked as if it had been cut into stone pencils. When cooled, the rocks shrink, and the resulting cracks can divide it into multi-faceted pillars.
Parallel dykes resemble pages of a stone book. Each of them was a crack, where magma penetrated, and then froze. The repetition of such implementations records how the…
Cyprus Cedar — not just another coniferous tree, evenly scattered through the mountains. An ecological survey links its natural forest communities to the Tripilos area in the Paphos…
The Cyprus stonemason nests only in Cyprus, but flies to Africa for the winter. The bird crosses the sea, and its breeding place is still connected to one…
In 2022, researchers described “ghost” microfossils: the limestone plates themselves dissolved, but their tiny prints survived on other sediment particles. The findings were studied in materials from the…
A rock on Earth can contain a mineral also studied by a Mars rover. Olivine is a component of olivine-rich Troodos rocks such as dunite. Perseverance also found…
The center of the geopark occupies the former primary settlement school at the Amiantos mine. Organized asbestos mining continued here from 1904 to 1988. After its completion, the…
The reef limestone preserves traces of the shallow marine environment. If it is visible on a hill today, the position of the rocks changed after its formation.