Stop Four – The Geology Of The Local Landscape ENG
From the geological point of view, Novopacko is a very colourful area and therefore the most valuable part of the Bohemian Paradise UNESCO Global Geopark. The rock basement consisting of various kinds of rocks of different age provides an insight into the distant past of hundreds of millions of years. To the North, there is the massif of the Krkonoše (Giant Mountains), constituted particularly by igneous and metamorphic rocks, granite and schist of Lower Paleozoic, while the southern part of the area is constituted by Mesozoic quartz sandstone sedimented in the shallow sea of that period. These sedimentary rocks yield abundance of fossils of various marine organisms.
Nová Paka lies on Upper Paleozoic rocks, i. e. Carboniferous and Permian rocks that fill the basin of the Krkonoše Piedmont. These are sediments originating from lakes, rivers, and swamps with the prevalence of claystone, siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate. These sediments created suitable environment for preservation of many kinds of fossils of both fauna and flora. The most interesting kind of fossils of the site, however, is silicified wood, i. e. petrified tree trunks and stalks and other parts of plants. They have been preserved in the form of fossils several metres long, and their perfect saturation with quartz allows for study of cellular structure of these plants. Novopacko is a world-famous site in relation to this kind of fossils.
The local sediments from Upper Paleozoic are complemented with igneous rocks from volcanoes that were active in the area at the end of Permian, leaving extensive bodies of dark basalt, the so-called melaphyre, containing abundance of semi-precious stones. The tradition of finding and processing local chalcedony, agate, jasper, and other precious stones is several hundred years long.
The geological profile of Novopacko is complemented with Upper Tertiary volcanic formations, mostly basalt ones, that are conspicuous in the surrounding landscape. The final image of the landscape was created by Quaternary denudation, activities of water, glaciers, human activities, and other factors.