Tabule 1 (desatero) ENG

The Nová Paka region is well-known among professional geologists as well as fossil collectors. This educational trail presents the history of the Earth and life on it, from the oldest periods until present. It will lead you to a place called Balka, one of the local famous fossil sites. There used to be a small quarry (sandpit) for mining of rocks of the so-called Ploužnice Horizon, which belongs to the Semily Formation of the Krkonoše Piedmont Basin. These Late Carboniferous deposits (approx. 300 million years old) are famous for their rich fossil content. Thanks to saturation with silica, the sediments have preserved a range of species of coeval flora, particularly their petrified stems (“silicified woods”). The site has yielded stems of arborescent and climbing ferns, horsetails, pteridosperms and gymnosperms, as well as various small pieces of these plants in the form of large silicified concretions, the so-called “silicified peat”. A very illustrative collection of these fossils you can see in the Municipal Museum Nová Paka. Some parts of the Ploužnice Horizon have also yielded impressions of plants and insects and many carnelian concretions, usually up to several centimetres in size. They are commonly covered with a pale calcareous crust and the inside is meat-coloured shade of red, orange, or teal. 

The Balka complex allows you to try the work of a palaeontologist or a gold digger and experience many other adventures.