Where are rocky beaches on the Black Sea, and where are sandy ones? Sea stone: name, description. Types of sea stones

during the years of the Stalinist five-year plans, large-scale construction of port facilities began. In this regard, I had to deal with stone and sand streams more than once. Their detailed study was in turn. It was necessary to solve a number of questions: what are the length and direction of the flows, where does the material of the flows come from, what is the power of these flows and how is it related to the strength and direction of the waves, that is, to the wave regime.

A number of research organizations were engaged in solving these problems, but the most extensive studies were carried out by the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. One such work was carried out on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea.

The Black Sea coast is bordered here by a surface strip of pebbles, which forms the material of the coastal stream. During the construction of three ports - Sochi, Gagrinsky and Ochemirsky - it was found that the flow of sediment goes from the northwest to the southeast. Where does this stream begin and where does it end? In order to answer this question, we studied, on the one hand, the outline and structure of the coast, and on the other, the composition of the rocks that form pebbles.

The coast near the city of Tuapse and to the north of it has an uneven contour. Here, bare rocky capes alternate with open wide bays, into which small rivers flow (Fig. 15). There are almost no debris near the capes, and those that lie there are not rounded at all.

The sharp corners and fresh fractures of these debris indicate that the stones have recently fallen from sheer cliffs.

In the bays, on the contrary, there is an abundance of pebbles. But the pebbles turned out to be completely different in each of the bays. Each river brings to the sea the fragments of those rocks that are in its basin. One bay, for example, is full of diabases (a dark, hard rock of volcanic origin), while the neighboring bay has none at all. Hence, the conclusion suggests itself that adjacent bays do not exchange pebbles with each other and there is no constant flow here. Yes, this is understandable, since waves from the open sea can drive pebbles only into the bay, and not move it from the top of the bay to the cape.

South of Tuapse, approximately from the mouth of the Ashe River, the picture is gradually changing (Fig. 15). The coast becomes more even. The river sediments that have accumulated here move almost in line with the former capes. It is here that one must look for the "sources" of the stone river.

Pebbles along the entire coast from Ashe to Cape Pitsunda turned out to be mixed. It was necessary to find such a breed that would be easily distinguished from all others, was on the beach in sufficient quantity and was carried out to the sea by only one single river. This breed has been found. She is carried out by the river Shahe. This is a light muscovite granite; it is easy to distinguish it from all other stones on the shore by its white color and sparkles of mica, muscovite, interspersed with it.

Granite pebbles are found only south of the Shahe estuary; already a kilometer to the north there is not a single granite stone. Further it was found that this wonderful pebble is on the beach everywhere, up to the Pitsunda cape, at a distance of 130 kilometers from the mouth of the Shakhe. All the ego says that the stream begins a little north of the mouth of the Shakhe and goes as far as Pitsunda.

The entire coast of the Black Sea from Tuapse to Gagra is composed of a monotonous rock called fli-shem. This is a thin interbedding of sandstones, shales and marls. However, there are many very different rocks on the beach. Where do they come from? - They are brought here by mountain rivers. All major rivers reach their upper reaches up to the watershed of the Caucasian ridge and cross limestone, phyllites, gneisses, porphyrites and other rocks along the way. In the sediments of these rivers, there are almost half of non-slick rocks. On the sea beach, that is, as part of the sediment stream, there are slightly more than one quarter of them. This means that silt pebbles are more than half of river sediments.

Why couldn't the rivers of the Tuapse region and north of it create a stone stream?

In the direction from northwest to southeast, the Caucasian ridge becomes higher and higher and moves further and further from the sea. The basins of mountain rivers and the steepness of their fall are increasing. In addition, in the southeastern part of the ridge, it rains twice as often as in the northwest. And there are more rivers and more water in them. Consequently, more and more sediment flows to the sea coast. These quantitative changes, gradually accumulating from north to south, and led to an abrupt change in the nature of the sea coast. In the north, the coast is dissected, and a small number of stones brought by the rivers remain entirely in the tops of the bays. Therefore, there is no sediment flow in the north. In the south, there was so much sediment that they leveled the coast and formed a constant stone stream.

The power of the stream, that is, the amount of sediment that it moves over a certain time (per year), turned out to be completely different in different places, despite the fact that the coast from Shakhe to Pitsunda is stretched in one direction and has approximately the same wave regime. In Sochi, for example, the capacity of a stone stream is 32 thousand cubic meters per year, and in Gagra - only 15-20 thousand cubic meters. This is due to the fact that the stones gradually wear out. Indeed, in order for a round "velvet" pebble to turn out of rough unrolled crushed stone, the corners of the crushed stone must be beaten off and all protruding edges erased. But once the rubble is rubbed off, then the pebble itself should be rubbed - only, perhaps, at a lower speed. Abrasion products - particles of silt and sand - are carried away from the coast to great depths.

How much stone is being worn out? This issue was resolved as follows.

Porous Ayrum basalt was brought from Armenia to Sochi. This breed is not found anywhere on the Black Sea coast and absorbs paint well. Many pieces of this basalt were soaked in the colored cement mortar so that the mortar went deep into the pores. Then the painted pieces were thrown onto the beach. The wreckage was roughly the same size and weight. A few months later, many of these stones were found near the coast. It turned out that they had significantly decreased in weight and became almost completely smooth, but had not yet turned into real pebbles. It has been estimated that about 7 percent of the basalt is crushed and abraded in a year. But basalt is very durable. The beach is dominated by pebbles from much less resistant rocks. Through complex calculations, it was possible to determine that about 20 percent of the total mass of pebbles is worn out annually. This means that if no new debris arrives at the beach, all the pebbles will disappear in 5 years.

Now it is clear that the power of the flow should change depending on the distance that the pebbles had time to travel. Each river carries out a new portion of sediment and increases its power, but until the flow reaches the mouth of the next river, its power will decrease.

Then another interesting question arose. The study of the composition of the sediment, the structure of the coast itself and the changes that the construction of ports causes on the coast - all the ego says about the fact that the sediment flows along the coast to the southeast. And storms most often come here from the southeast, and they, it would seem, should drive the pebbles just in the opposite direction!

I had to remember that the amount and speed of sediment movement depend on the wave energy, and the energy of waves of different directions is far from the same. Western storms, although rare, are exceptional in strength. The energy of a nine-point storm that came from the west, from the vast expanses of the open sea, is twelve times higher than the energy of a seven-point southeastern storm, which, arising in Batumi, has not yet had time to disperse a particularly large wave. The energy of the waves of each storm for the year was calculated and their energy resultant was built. And this new resultant laid down so that it showed the actually observed direction of the coastal flow. This work was carried out by the Soviet engineer A. M. Zhdanov.

The young, still developing world always consists of stone, water and fire. This is what the planet looked like a billion years ago. A sky covered with thunderclouds, in which the flames of erupting volcanoes were reflected, and a raging, eternally stormy sea.

In the mad chaos of lightning, rolling thunder and roaring volcanoes, it was born. It is today she, cozy and green, but then everything looked completely different. The land, shivering nervously in the incessant, vomited what would later become basalt and gneiss.

The mountains, crawling over each other like giant monsters, gnawed and maimed each other, dropping huge blocks of granite and gabbro.

Only over time did the earth gradually get rid of birth pangs and calmed down, from time to time throwing columns of volcanic eruptions into the gradually clearing sky and shaking the rocky surface, crumbling and crushing individual blocks and rocks.

World of water

The climate gradually became milder. Warm waters filled the lowlands and depressions, and such a life was born in them. Outlandish crustaceans and molluscs spread surprisingly abundantly in warm seas. Dying away, they literally covered the bottom with their shells and shells. More and more mollusks appeared in the warm brackish water, the layer of their remains at the bottom became thicker, thicker and harder. Collapsing under their own weight, the shells were mixed, as if fused with each other, turning into solid stone blocks.

A rolling stone does not grow moss

Those stones that are found in everyday life, in most cases, are remnants of either destroyed sedimentary rocks, which makes up about 75% of the total amount of stones, or metamorphic rocks of the order of 18-20%, that is, rocks that have changed inside the earth under the influence of pressure and temperature. Everything else is igneous rocks such as granites and basalts. Initial rocks from the depths of the planet.

All these boulder stones have acquired their present appearance mainly as a result of weathering on land and flowing rivers in the water. Only an insignificant part of the remnant stones on the plains have preserved, if not the original, then at least a fairly ancient appearance, but they were also affected by weathering, especially in the case when a boulder or an outlier is composed of sedimentary rocks that are relatively easily destroyed as a result of atmospheric phenomena. As an example, we can cite the characteristic figures of weathering in the valley of ghosts at South Demerdzhi in the Crimean mountains.

There were several classifications of gemstones. It is now generally accepted to divide them into 3 categories. The first includes the rarest and most expensive, the third ornamental stones. Not only jewelry is made of minerals, but also figurines, talismans and other carved figures.

Precious stones include gems with a hardness of more than 6 and the ability to diffuse light. They are characterized by uniform color or lack of color, wear resistance, resistance to aggressive environments and fading. They belong to high quality raw materials, most of them are cut.

The hardness scale was invented in 1811 by the German scientist Friedrich Moos. It was based on the principle of comparing rocks of different hardness. The hardest stone is diamond.

Another group of stones is called ornamental. These include crystals, including opaque ones, and stones with inclusions and patterns. They are used for carvings, ornaments, and for finishing works.

There are several types of precious stones, professionals divide them into 3 groups, depending on the value. This classification was proposed by V. Ya. Kievlenko.

According to M. Bauer's classification, all gems are divided into precious, ornamental and organogenic stones, which include amber, pearls and coral. The most expensive are natural stones, which are very rare in nature.

Minerals presented in the first group are called gem (precious) and are divided into 4 categories.

1. The most - diamond, followed by sapphire (blue), ruby \u200b\u200band emerald.
2. Orange, green and purple sapphires are cheaper than blue ones, jadeite, alexandrite, pearls, black opal.
3. Demantoid, topaz, aquamarine, red tourmaline, the most valuable of the fiery and white opals.
4. Turquoise, tourmaline, amethyst, beryl, chrysolite, beryl (pink, yellow), chrysoprase.

Jewelry can vary greatly in cost, since several criteria affect the price of a stone. The four main ones are clarity, color, weight and cut.

After cutting, the color of the finished insert is judged by tone, saturation and hue. Emeralds and rubies have one main color, but there can be several variations of its shades. Tourmalines and topaz come in a variety of colors, each with a specific value. The handicraft of the master cutter allows the gem to sparkle and sparkle in good lighting, bringing out the natural beauty of the mineral. The cost of rare large gems can increase exponentially in relation to their mass.

Group 2 includes colored and jewelry and ornamental stones. It consists of two groups.

1. Malachite, amber, smoky quartz, jade, hematite, jadeite, rock crystal.
2. Opaque feldspars, heliotrope, agate, rose quartz, ordinary opal, colored chalcedony.

These stones are well polished and used as an insert in jewelry and are used as souvenirs and figurines.

The third group consists of ornamental stones. These include: fluorite, selenite, colored marble, granite, jasper, obsidian, jet, aventurine quartzite. Large products are cut out of them, the height of which can reach several tens of centimeters.

Mineral prices can change with the discovery of new deposits or under the influence of fashion. Only specialists can distinguish a synthetic stone from a natural one, since in terms of physical and chemical properties they are similar to natural gems.

Quiet sunny morning. We are on the Black Sea coast, somewhere on a rocky coast, for example, at the foot of the Karadag rocks.

These are those hours of complete silence when the night wind from the land has not yet been replaced by the daytime sea wind. The almost motionless sea changes its colors every minute, reflecting the sky and coastal cliffs, illuminated by bright rays.

Nothing breaks the serenity of the early morning. A winged predator circles lazily high above the rocks. Even the busy seagulls have become quiet and in groups are sitting on the shore, as if waiting for something.

Quiet and on the seabed. Between the coastal rocks it is clearly visible at great depth. The stalks of brown algae sway barely noticeably, their dense thickets resemble some kind of dwarf fantastic forest. A chiseled figure of a seahorse has detached from the stalk of the seaweed and, quickly fingering with tiny fins, hovers over a forest of algae. One of the stems suddenly began to stir and, bending smoothly, floated between the stones. Behind him is another. But these are not stems, but very thin needle fish. Where there is less algae and the bottom is lined with multi-colored Karadag pebbles, flocks of tiny mullet fry quickly sweep by. From under the stone, stirring the water, moving its claws, a huge black crab crawled out, stood in thought, looked fiercely at the underwater world with bulging eyes and crawled sideways under another stone.

Silence and peace in nature involuntarily give rise to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe eternal inviolability of stone cliffs and rocks piling up on the coast. And it seems that there is no such force that could destroy these motionless masses ...

But a light breeze pulled from the sea. The smallest ripples covered the surface of the water in long stripes. The sky is still clear, only a white cloud appeared on the horizon, like a lone sail.

Several minutes pass. The cloud grows, branches, turns gray. Another moment - and, becoming completely leaden, it approaches the shore with a huge clawed paw. The sun disappeared. Strong gusts of wind rip off the tops of the waves and throw them on the shore. Rocks become wet and slippery.

Seagulls soared into the air and screaming, then falling, then soaring upward, quickly sweep over the sea. The waves keep growing and growing, and finally the three-meter shafts crash onto the shore. The rock from which we first observed the seabed is now and then disappearing under their crests. Another minute, and a solid wall of rain hid the horizon ...

If a biologist prefers quiet weather for observations, then for a geologist who wants to see the action of external geological forces, storm and downpour provide the richest material.

The downpour produces a destructive work of tremendous force, especially in mountainous areas, where streams of water formed by the downpour rush down mountain slopes, gullies and mountain rivers at high speed, eroding and carrying into the sea a colossal amount of stony debris.

Most of all, small particles of clay and sandy loose rocks are demolished. These particles are easily moved by water streams with even low speed. It is clear that the soil cover of treeless slopes suffers the most from rainfall in mountainous areas. Sometimes tens of hectares of fertile soil are washed away. At the same time, soils and other loose rocks saturated with moisture can form powerful mud flows, mudflows, of a terrible destructive force. Rushing along the slopes, the mudflows sweep away gardens, vineyards and even entire villages on their way.

However, such catastrophic events are relatively rare. Usually, the smallest particles of rocks that are in suspension in the water are washed out and carried away by surface waters, and large debris - pebbles, cobblestones and boulders - move, rolling along the bottom of mountain rivers.

All debris washed off the land surface is eventually carried out into the sea and deposited on its bottom. At the same time, it is rather regularly distributed on the seabed according to the size of the debris.

All those who visit Crimea are well aware that there are many fragments of rocks and pebbles of various sizes on the beach of the South Coast, as well as other places on the mountain coast. If you go down to the bottom of the sea 100-150 meters from the pebble shore, it will be lined with small pebbles (gravel) and coarse sand. At great depths, the bottom is covered with fine-grained sand, which becomes thinner and thinner with increasing depth, and at depths reaching hundreds of meters, the sea bottom is covered with a continuous layer of silt.

This distribution of debris on the seabed is due to the uneven water mobility. Near the coast, in the surf zone, where water is almost always in motion, particles of sand and even more so silt cannot settle, only large pebbles remain in this zone. At great depths, where the roughness of the sea surface does not affect the bottom sediments so much, for example, at a depth of 10-15 meters, sand particles are deposited, and, finally, at a depth of more than one hundred meters, where even the excitement of strong storms does not disturb the silence of the bottom waters, - the smallest particles of silt with a size of less than 0.01 millimeters are deposited. Only the bottom currents of great sea depths sometimes stir up and move the silty; sediment.

In the most distant from the coast areas of the seabed, even silty particles are almost not deposited, since most of the clay material settles, although at considerable depths, closer to the coast from which it comes. Only wind-blown dust can be deposited on the seabed at a great distance from the coast.

There are also deviations from this pattern in the distribution of marine sediments. For example, the Evpatoria beach does not contain pebbles and is entirely composed of shell sand; it also lined the bottom for many hundreds of meters from the coast. In the surf zone on the Black Sea coast of the Kerch Peninsula, in some places there is no sand; here, from the coast to considerable depths, the sea bottom is covered with silty sediments. This is due to the fact that the land of the Evpatoria coast is composed of loose shell limestone and sandy-argillaceous rocks, and the coast of the Kerch Peninsula is in places composed only of clays. It is clear that these loose rocks, when eroded and destroyed by surface waters, easily disintegrate into composite fine-grained particles without forming large fragments, and, thus, there is no zone of coarse marine sediments here. The rocks of the Crimean mountain coast are composed of more ancient, compacted, strongly cemented sedimentary rocks and very strong - igneous. Due to their density, these rocks persist for a long time in large debris, even when surface waters carry them over long distances.

Surface waters carry debris into the sea, and sea waves in the surf zone, in turn, perform continuous destructive work, especially intensified during storms. In the rocky shores, they develop niches and various gullies, sometimes of the most bizarre shape (for example, the original gully already known to us - the Karadag Gate) was formed. The washed-out shores lose stability, and from time to time there are rock falls, cluttering the coast with debris. If the coastal rocks are loose or poorly cemented, and the banks are high and steep, then the coastal slopes slide. Landslides are often huge and cause serious damage to coastal areas. The debris generated by the activity of sea waves is distributed along the seabed in the same way as the debris brought by surface waters. This is how sedimentary marine clastic rocks, otherwise called terrigenous (terra - earth), begin their formation at the bottom of the sea, since the particles from which they are formed come from the surface of the land - from the ground.

Organic sea life also creates large accumulations of sediment on the seabed.

Whoever has been to the Evpatoria beach or other places on the coast of the steppe Crimea or the Kerch Peninsula, of course, has seen a myriad of mollusk shells here. In calm weather, at shallow depths, you can also observe live mollusks moving slowly along the bottom or attached to underwater rocks or algae.

There are especially many bivalve ribbed shells of the mollusc cardium edule, or heart-shaped, painted in various shades of pinkish and lilac tones. Less common are elongated, long claw-like shells of zolen and rather large, beautiful shells of pectenes, or, in other words, scallops. Where the coast is teeming with rocks or algae, you can find clusters of black pear-shaped mussel shells that form huge colonies called banks. In addition to these mollusks, many others are found. Small balianus crustaceans are often attached to pitfalls and valves of large shells, which are also enclosed in a conical calcareous shell. These crustaceans are also called sea acorns.

Shells of mollusks are also found on rocky shores, but they are most common in relatively shallow parts of the sea, where the bottom is lined with sand mixed with silt.

There are especially many bottom mollusks here, in particular, heart-shaped and scallops, inhabiting depths from 15 to 35 meters.

Over time, the calcareous shells of dying mollusks form layers of many meters on the bottom of the sea, and if it has a gentle slope, then the strip of shell deposits reaches a width of several kilometers. The waves of the surf carry shells and their debris to the shore, and thus there are vast seashell beaches, similar to Evpatoria.

This is how rocks of biological origin begin their formation on the seabed, or, as they are called, biogenic, because the shell of the mollusk consists of calcium carbonate, which is extracted by the mollusk from a solution of sea water and precipitated by it in the form of a solid.

In addition to biogenic sediments, sediments of chemical origin can form. These are various substances that are deposited in the form of crystals at the bottom of enclosed pools as a result of strong evaporation of water saturated with salts.

Such sediments include: self-settling table salt, Glauber's salt, gypsum, and many other salts.

Some of the substances contained in river waters precipitate when these waters are mixed with sea salt water. So, for example, solutions of iron and manganese salts of river waters, getting into a salt sea basin, precipitate, forming silts enriched with these elements. These silts are transformed over time into iron and manganese ores of sedimentary origin.

Calcium carbonate can also precipitate when the temperature of the water changes. In colder waters, the solubility of calcium carbonate is greater than in warm waters; heating the water leads to partial precipitation.

This is, in general terms, the process of formation on the seabed of thick layers of sediments of terrigenous, biogenic and chemical origin.

Centuries and millennia pass. More and more precipitation is accumulating at the bottom of the sea, especially in its coastal zones, due to the continuous erosion by surface waters of the attached land. And if the earth's crust were in constant rest, then over time there would be no continents on the globe, but there would be a continuous shallow ocean. But this does not happen and cannot happen, since the earth's crust is in motion all the time, going down and up, which, in turn, entails the advance of the sea on land and the retreat of sea waters from it. This is how deep sea depressions and high mountain systems are formed.

If the land sinks, then the sea comes to the shore, and then the coastal pebble deposits are at a greater depth and sands and silts or shell formations are deposited on top of them. In this way, an alternation of sedimentary rocks of various compositions is created. If land is uplifted, then part of the marine sediments appears on the surface of the earth, and deeper marine sediments, for example, silts, end up in a shallow water zone, and then pebbles and sands are deposited on top of them.

Oscillations of the earth's crust occur continuously and almost always very slowly and imperceptibly, but over a long geological time, measured in hundreds of thousands and millions of years, individual areas of the earth move vertically for several kilometers, and therefore we can observe how ancient marine sediments sometimes lie on mountain tops.

Over a huge period of time, loose, free-flowing or plastic bottom sediments of the sea are gradually compacted and turn into hard-stone sedimentary rock, which reappears on the earth's surface after centuries, is subjected to the destructive influence of atmospheric forces, and again its fragments or salts dissolved in water enter the sea and are deposited at its bottom.

Such is the continuous process of destruction and formation of sedimentary rocks, the primary material of which was nevertheless igneous rocks.

We talked about the process of formation of sedimentary rocks at the bottom of the sea. Sedimentary rocks are also created on land. Various debris accumulates here, deposited by surface water and wind. But the scale of accumulation of continental sedimentary rocks is negligible in comparison with marine ones. And the existence of continental sediments is usually short-lived. Most often, they quickly erode and drift into the sea.

In a word, land is a place mainly for the destruction of stone by external geological forces, and the sea is an area of \u200b\u200bformation of rocks and minerals of sedimentary origin.

The surface of the Crimean Peninsula is more than 99% composed of sedimentary rocks of various composition and geological age. All these rocks are of marine origin, and only the relatively thin cover of loams and soils overlying them belongs to relatively recent continental formations.

Stones of sedimentary origin are very diverse, and many of them are minerals, that is, mineral resources that are used in the national economy.

Now let's head along the highway from Simferopol to Alushta. When descending from the pass, two kilometers from the highway, a huge massif of Mount Demerdzhi rises on its left side. At the top of the mountain and its slopes facing the sea, there are numerous columns and bizarre towers. One of these pillars resembles a bust of Catherine II, and therefore Demerdzhi is sometimes called Catherine Mountain.

From a distance, the mountain is undoubtedly picturesque, but this is not enough for a geologist, he always strives to get to know the material from which its cliffs are made.

The best and easiest way to get to the top of Demerdzhi is from the Alushta pass. This will save you several hundred meters of ascent, since the height of the mountain exceeds 1200 meters.

Passing along the western slope of Demerdzhi, you will see a pile of huge blocks of stone below. This is a huge landslide that destroyed the village at the foot of the mountain back in the last century.

Mount Demerdzhi is composed of sedimentary rocks - conglomerates, which are firmly cemented gravel. Now we already know that these are marine coastal deposits of some ancient sea or ancient river delta. The conglomerates of the mountain in time refer to the Jurassic period, which is 110-120 million years away from us. It is not surprising that over such a long period of time, the coastal gravel has become firmly cemented and turned out to be more than 1200 meters above sea level.

Conglomerates of Mount Demerdzhi are a very durable breed, they slowly succumb to the influence of external forces. But nevertheless, wind, water and temperature fluctuations do their destructive work, again turning the conglomerate into gravel. As a result of the centuries-old action of these forces, those bizarre pillars and towers that are visible from afar were formed. Here, at the top of the mountain, these pillars are especially majestic, and one cannot even believe that they were created by the activity of external geological forces.

If you look closely at the pebbles that make up the conglomerate, we can find among them the most diverse rocks. Here we will meet black pebbles of dense sandstones and shales, milky-white pebbles of quartz, red patterned pebbles of igneous granite rock unknown in Crimea. Black shiny pebbles of the ore mineral hematite are occasionally found.

Black pebbles of dense sandstone and shale represent fragments of rocks older than conglomerates. By age, the shales also belong to the Jurassic rocks, but formed at the beginning of the Jurassic period, and are marine sediments of great depths. Numerous quartz pebbles are also representatives of older rocks than conglomerates. Pebbles of igneous rock of granite and pebbles of hematite belong to even more ancient rocks, almost unknown in the Crimea. Only near the town of Balaklava was a small rock of granite found, but completely different from the granite of Demerdzhi pebbles.

Where did the granite fragments come from into the Jurassic Sea?

Many scientists believe that in the Jurassic time there was a dry land to the north of Demerdzhi, composed of rocks unknown in Crimea in our time. Later, this land sank to a great depth and formed a giant depression, which was filled with the waters of the Black Sea. Traces of the former existence of this land are captured in its fragments - pebbles, enclosed in the conglomerates of Demerdzhi.

The conglomerate is used by the local population as a rubble stone for the foundations of buildings, but it is not widely used as a building stone, since it is difficult to process.

Let's leave the peak of Demerdzhi with its bizarre weathering forms and descend to the southeastern slope of the mountain. Here we will see completely different rocks - shales and sandstones, underlying the Demerdzhi conglomerates.

These thin-layered almost black rocks are widespread along the entire southern and southeastern coast of Crimea. Their distinctive feature is that in many places they are strongly crumpled into folds and cracked. You can even observe folds of the second and third order, when the wing of one giant fold, in turn, is crumpled and consists of smaller folds, and the latter are also crumpled into small folds several tens of centimeters in size.

Slates and sandstones of the Black Sea coast of Crimea are among the most ancient rocks, formed at the end of the Triassic and early Jurassic periods. These rocks are not subdivided in more detail by age, since they do not contain fossilized organic remains. They were given a common name - Tavricheskaya strata.

It is easy to see that the rocks of the Taurian strata, like a layered cake, consist of layers of black thin-layered clay shales alternating with interlayers of dense sandstones. Consequently, these sediments, as well as conglomerates, are of clastic - terrigenous origin, but they were formed not in the coastal zone, but at deeper depths, where fine clay particles could have been deposited, from which shales were formed. During the deposition of these sediments, the depth of the sea was constantly changing: at times the sea became shallower, and then the sands were deposited, at times it became deeper again, and the deposition of clay particles resumed. So the oscillatory process of the earth's crust was reflected in the nature of the structure of this sedimentary strata. During the formation of the Tauride strata in the lagoons and bays of the Jurassic Sea, in addition to clastic material, a large amount of plant remains accumulated, which turned out to be buried under the ids of lagoons and bays and have survived to our time in the form of coal beds. Coal in sandy-shale deposits is found in many places of the Crimea. Known, for example, the Beshuisky mines located in the upper reaches of the river. Kachi. For some time, these mines were developed, and the coal was used for local needs. In coal seams, there are often interlayers of petrified resin - jet. Jet is easy to process and can be used to make various small items and ornaments.

Black Tavricheskie slates easily exfoliate into thin tiles, but, unfortunately, small in size. Perhaps it will be possible to find an array of these rocks, in which the slates will not be so fragmented, and then large thin tiles can be used as roofing material. Thick sandstone tiles are widely used by the local population: fences and even walls, mainly of outbuildings, are laid out of them.

If you go around Mount Demerdzhi from the southeast and, reaching the village of Generalskoye, climb the Khopkhal gorge, then we will find ourselves in the area of \u200b\u200bdistribution of other sedimentary rocks - limestones, lying on the Jurassic conglomerates.

In Crimea, limestones are widespread and belong to different geological ages. Limestones in the Hophal gorge are the most ancient limestones of Crimea, they are attributed to the Upper Jurassic time. They formed most of the peaks and plateaus of the mountainous part of the peninsula. These plateaus are called yayls in Crimea.

Climbing the hard-to-pass Kophal gorge, we will come to the Tyrke ridge, which connects two large yayly: Demerdzhi-yayla in the south-west and Karabi-yayla in the northeast.

The surface of the yailas is devoid of woody vegetation and is a slightly hilly plain, in places covered with grass, in places bare and rocky. Sometimes in the folds of the terrain, small groups of dwarf pines, twisted by continuous winds, grow. Being in the center of the yayla, you forget that you have risen to an altitude of over 1000 meters above sea level and that below you, on the southern and northern slopes of the yayla, there is a typical mountain landscape and lush vegetation. This contrast is especially noticeable after the picturesque Hophal Gorge with its waterfalls and century-old forest.

We already know that limestones in most cases are of biological origin and less often form as a chemical sediment.

The Yaylinsky limestones are also biogenic sediments with some admixture of sandy-clayey material, so they have a light gray color. There are also quite clean limestones of white or light yellow color. Minor admixtures of iron, manganese and other elements often create a beautiful pattern that can be clearly seen when polishing the stone.

Examining the limestone, you can see the organic remains contained in it in the form of shells and coral valves, indicating that this limestone is of marine and biological origin. But tens of millions of years that have elapsed since the burial of these calcareous organisms at the bottom of the sea, and tremendous pressure caused strong changes in calcareous sediments. They turned into a dense rock in which the primary calcium carbonate recrystallized, and therefore the shell valves and corals enclosed in the stone merge with the total mass of the stone and are sometimes difficult to distinguish.

Such dense recrystallized limestones, which are easy to polish, are called marbled.

An array of gray marble-like limestones, located near Yalta, is being mined, and the quarried stone is used to make various crafts: writing instruments, table decorations and other small things. Slabs for cladding buildings and some architectural decorations are also made from marbled limestone.

In Crimea, there is also real marble, the deposits of which are located near the town of Balaklava. The pattern of the Crimean marble is elegant and whimsical, thanks to the remnants of shells and corals enclosed in it, and the combination of delicate yellowish tones with bright red and brown shades gives a special charm to the polished surface of this stone. Facing slabs were made of Crimean marble, which adorn some lobbies of the Moscow metro. Perhaps the first in the history of stone culture was the use of marble by man as a material for sculptures and architectural decorations. For these purposes, marble was used in ancient Greece.

In tsarist Russia, marble was almost never mined. This stone was imported mainly from Greece and was used almost exclusively to decorate the royal palaces and the dwellings of the rich.

Now, in our time of grandiose construction projects of communism and the flourishing of Soviet culture and art, marble, as never before in history, has found wide application in our country. At the same time, we use domestic marble, which is distinguished by the beauty of the pattern and the variety of colors. Our marble can be seen in the halls of the Moscow Palace of Science - University. Lomonosov, in the wonderful palaces of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, on the structures of the Volga-Don Canal named after VI Lenin and on many other buildings in various cities of our country.

Marble is also widely used in industry. As an excellent insulating material, it is used for the manufacture of switchboards and various insulating parts. Marble-like and generally dense pure limestones are used in the metallurgical industry as fluxes.

Marble is easy to process: sawing, carving, grinding and polishing. However, marble products, although durable, do not last forever. In this respect, marble is in many ways inferior to igneous rocks.

Academician A.E. Fersman calculated that, on average, a layer of marble 1 millimeter thick dissolves per century. On the scale of time of human life, this is an insignificant value, although it should not be neglected. On the scale of geological time, marble and limestone are considered as readily soluble rocks. Multiply, for example, a value of 1 millimeter by ten thousand times and you get a layer of 10 meters. A layer of such thickness will dissolve within one million years, and in the history of the earth this is a very small period of time, approximately one three thousandth of the time elapsed since the beginning of the formation of the earth's crust. It should be borne in mind that under appropriate natural conditions, limestone rocks can dissolve much more intensively than one millimeter per hundred years.

Especially quickly limestone dissolves by waters containing carbonic acid, which are secreted in large quantities by plant roots; it also dissolves with other natural acids.

Pay attention to the surface of the Crimean yailas. Here, in some places, there are funnel-shaped depressions and dips. Sometimes in the center of the hole there is a channel that goes deeper. The exposed limestones in the low places of the yayl have a peculiar hilly surface and from a distance resemble a herd of grazing sheep. All this is the result of the dissolution of limestone by surface waters, a phenomenon called karst.

Penetrating through cracks deep into the limestone massif, water continues to dissolve limestone, forming channels, through which underground rivers sometimes flow rapidly. Over time, galleries and huge caves form on their way. Sometimes water reappears on the surface in the form of powerful springs. Such springs, for example, include the well-known in Crimea spring Ayan, located on the northern spurs of Chatyrdag (Shater Mountain) and supplying water to the city of Simferopol.

We started our acquaintance with the limestones and marble of Crimea in the Khopkhal gorge. It would seem that it was not worth taking the reader 20 kilometers from the Alushta highway in order to show him the limestone and acquaint him with the marbles of the Crimea, which can be easily seen on Ai-Petri and in the vicinity of Yalta, without even getting off the bus. But in this little-known corner - the Hophal gorge - during one route we have the opportunity to observe almost all the main varieties of sedimentary rocks - conglomerates, sandstones, clays and limestones. In addition, in the Hophal gorge, we will see one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Crimea, fed by underground karst waters, which, upon reaching the surface, emit a huge amount of lime in the form of a light porous mass, called limestone tuff. And, finally, in 5-6 kilometers to the north-east of the gorge there is Karabi-Yaila, which has the most pronounced forms of karst processes.

We have characterized marble in detail and said little about limestone, from which, in fact, dense marbles are formed.

There is a lot of limestone in the Crimea, whole massifs in the mountains and huge strata of gently inclined strata in the steppe part of the peninsula are built up.

White, rather dense limestones dating back to the end of the Cretaceous period are widely known both in Crimea and beyond. They consist of the calcareous skeletons of microscopic corals - bryozoans with a slight admixture of sandy-clay material. More often these rocks are called the Inkerman stone, since it is mined in large quantities near Inkerman.

Durable Inkerman stone is widely used as wall and facing building material. The hero city of Sevastopol, revived from ruins, has been turned into one of the most beautiful cities in the country, and the buildings of this city owe much of their beauty to the snow-white or slightly yellowish Inkerman stone, with which the walls of all buildings of the city are faced.

In the region of Simferopol, Evpatoria, Kerch and in many other places of the foothill and steppe Crimea, a shell rock is widespread, entirely consisting of calcite-cemented shells that once inhabited the shallow seas of the Tertiary period, covering the territory of the modern Crimean steppes and foothills.

The shell rock is a porous rock that is easily cut into bars with an ordinary saw. It has incomparably less strength than the Inkerman stone, and therefore houses are erected from it in one, rarely two floors in height.

In Crimea, a brick building is as rare as a wooden one. All Crimean cities are built of stone born at the bottom of the sea as a result of centuries-old activity of marine organisms.

Although there are no brick buildings in Crimea, bricks are produced in significant quantities for furnaces, factory pipes and other construction purposes. For the production of bricks, a rock is also used of sedimentary origin - clay. Clays formed at the beginning of the Cretaceous period are considered the best for making bricks, roof tiles, pipes and various pottery. The reserves of these clays are enormous, their layers stretch, starting from Balaklava, along the foothills of the entire Crimea to Feodosia.

There are also huge reserves of marls - rocks of sedimentary origin, which is a cemented mixture of clay and calcareous particles. Margels are the main raw material for the manufacture of cement, which is not yet produced in Crimea.

Limestones and marls are not rich in minerals. Sometimes they contain crystals of calcite and gypsum, which, however, do not differ either in beauty or size. In the clays, you can find many beautiful crystals of gypsum in the form of large roses or in the form of a dovetail. There are also rounded concretions of spherosiderite, accumulations and crusts of golden cubic pyrite crystals. However, all these minerals are not rare, we can find them everywhere and therefore will not be looking for them in these rocks.

Terrigenous and biogenic sediments, as a rule, are poor in minerals visible to the naked eye, but when examining these rocks under a microscope, the mineralogist finds here a collection no less rich than in igneous rocks.

By studying sedimentary rocks under a microscope and identifying microscopic crystals and their fragments enclosed in them, geologists often manage to establish the land area from which these particles entered the ancient seas, and thus recreate the geography of the distant geological past.

Sedimentary rocks are of exceptional interest for those who wish to learn the history of Crimea and the development of living organisms that inhabited its seas and land. The fossilized remains of animals and plants can be used to reproduce the picture of life and landscapes that existed millions of years ago in a relatively complete and accurate manner.

We do not intend to stay away from the geological history of Crimea and will devote several pages to this issue at the end of the essay. Now let's get acquainted with the last and most interesting in the mineralogical relation group of sedimentary rocks - rocks of chemical origin.

We have already mentioned the processes of formation of various chemical precipitates, and now we will take a closer look at their variety - Kerch ores.

To do this, we will have to go again to the Kerch Peninsula, to the village of Arshintsevo, located on the steep bank of the Kerch Strait near the city of Kerch.

Arshintsevo is located in a large depression bounded by a chain of low hills.

If you climb to the top of one of the hills, then it is not difficult to trace that the ridge of these heights on all sides borders the basin with the village, mines and collective farm fields located in it; only in the east is it open towards the Kerch Strait.

The relief of the eastern and northern parts of the Kerch Peninsula is characterized by such hollows, surrounded by ring-shaped chains of hills, composed of very strong limestones.

These limestones are made up of tiny corals we already know, called bryozoans. You can see the leafy formations, dotted with the smallest cells and tubules, which served as a home for the microscopic organisms of these corals.

More than 10 million years ago, at the beginning of the Meotic age of the Tertiary period, the Kerch Peninsula was flooded with a shallow sea, and although the territory of the peninsula is significantly removed from the mountainous Crimea, where powerful mountain-forming processes took place, the action of these forces also affected here. The terrestrial layers of the Kerch Peninsula are also folded, albeit very flat. And where the crest of the folds rose, the bottom of the Meotic sea became shallow, and in some places the rise was so significant that islands were formed. Along these islands, in shallow waters, bryozoan corals lived. More and more islands gradually appeared, the bryozoan reefs increased in size, and thus, over time, lagoons were formed, surrounded by a chain of bryozoan reefs.

In subsequent geological epochs, the lagoons were filled with more and more new sediments, consisting either of sandy-clay material, or of numerous shell valves. Thanks to small, but incessant fluctuations of land, the lagoons were shallow, sometimes deeper. The climate at that time was moderate with little rainfall.

Several million years passed, and the hot subtropical humid climate of the Cimmerian age came. By that time, the lagoons were shallow, slightly saline basins separated from each other by a chain of islands and peninsulas.

The hot, humid climate caused lush vegetation and intense chemical decomposition of the land rocks surrounding the lagoons. The shores of the lagoons overgrown with dense forests, abundant in swamps, saturated the streams and rivers flowing into the lagoons with organic and inorganic acids.

These waters leached iron, manganese and other elements from the surrounding rocks and soils and, in a dissolved state, carried them out to the lagoons. In the lagoons, when fresh land waters mixed with brackish lagoon waters, dissolved salts of iron and other elements precipitated, mixing with silty and sandy particles brought in by the same streams. Various organic residues, brought by waters from land, decomposed at the bottom of the lagoons, providing abundant food for a variety of microorganisms, which in turn served as food for shellfish. Therefore, mollusks in the Cimmerian age reproduced especially successfully, differed in a variety of species and reached large sizes. Besides shellfish, the lagoons were inhabited by fish and seals.

So, for millennia, there was an accumulation of iron-saturated silts at the bottom of the lagoons in the Cimmerian age.

Later, as a result of the general uplift of the land, the sea retreated from the lagoons, ferruginous sediments became denser, various minerals of iron, manganese, phosphorus, barium and other elements were formed in them, and they turned into iron ore of sedimentary chemical origin.

We will begin our acquaintance with the Kerch ores and their minerals from the coastal cliff of the Kerch Strait in Arshintsevo.

To do this, you need to go to the park of culture and rest and go down the iron stairs to the beach of the Kerch Strait. Taking the direction to the south, you will soon see a 40-meter cliff wall, in places completely vertical, in places broken into giant steps by landslides. On the wall, layers of sedimentary rocks are clearly traced: on light yellow limestone, consisting of the smallest shells and their fragments, mixed with some clay and fine sand, a dark brown ore layer lies, and above it there are gray layers of sands and clays, younger than ore deposits, and at the very top of the cliff, light brown loams lie in a continuous cover.

We are interested in ore and its minerals, and we will deal with it.

The brown loose mass - iron ore - consists entirely of concentrically-shell-like brittle brown balls called oolites. These balls, like crystals, grew in ferrous ooze. Apparently, the silty particles interfered with the formation of real crystals, and the ferrous solutions, layer by layer, concentrated around various small particles, penetrating the clay mass of silt.

These oolites are composed of a mixture of various iron hydroxides, called the mineral limonite, with an admixture of clayey matter.

Among brown ooliths, sometimes black, shiny, as if varnished, are found. Their color indicates that in addition to iron, these oolites contain a significant amount of manganese.

Among the oolitic ore mass there are rounded, usually black on the surface, large nodules, sometimes reaching several tens of centimeters in diameter.

Such formations are familiar to us from the Karadag - these are concretions, but, in contrast to the Karadag, of sedimentary origin. They arise in a dense ore mass, when solutions, which are slowly circulating in oolitic ore, saturated with various mineral substances, concentrate around some inclusions and deposit new minerals.

Some of the nodules are a kind of natural caskets that contain beautiful crystals. However, you will have to open a lot of such boxes in order to find one or two with rich content.

Use a light hammer to crack the nodule. Sometimes a cavity of considerable size is found in it, as if lined with velvet with a black with a bluish tint, a delicate bloom that stains the fingers. Often on this layer, like diamonds on black velvet, small transparent plates sparkle; black bloom is the mineral wad (manganese hydroxide), and the sparkling plates are crystals of the calcite we know.

It happens that instead of a velvety coating, the concretion cavity is lined with a black, shiny, very dense crust; this is also manganese hydroxide - psilomelan.

Often in the cavities of nodules there are various phosphorus minerals - phosphates, which are compounds of iron, manganese, calcium, phosphorus, oxygen and water.

Just like the zeolites of Karadag, these phosphates are famous throughout the Union. Nowhere else is there such a variety, such beautiful and large crystals. Many of the phosphates were first discovered here and given local names. Most often, brown crystals of oxykerchenite are found in nodules or in shell cavities, sometimes long, sometimes many short ones, directed in all directions, like hedgehog needles. Dark blue, almost black flat crystals of gamma and beta-kerchenite are less common. Dull green crystals of alpha-kerchenite are relatively rare. Occasionally you can find small bright light green needles of anapaite.

In addition to clearly crystalline phosphates, so-called earthy varieties are often found, which are a powdery mass, often mixed with iron ore. These phosphates include accumulations of canary yellow mitridatite and green bosphorite occurring in the form of thin veins. In the cracks and voids of the ore, one can find thin deposits and nodules of bright blue earthy beta-kerchenite. In those areas of the ore that have been exposed to atmospheric oxygen for a long time, growths of the mineral pitsite are found similar to carpentry glue.

All of these phosphorus-containing minerals are complementary minerals to iron in ore deposits. When steel is smelted from cast iron, the phosphorus contained in it passes into slag, which can be used as fertilizer in agriculture.

Most of the nodules have cavities and represent a dense grayish-green mass, consisting of clayey siderite, around which there is a concentration of manganese, phosphorus and some other minerals.

When raking loose ore, we may come across brown fossilized bones of some vertebrates - these are the remains of seals that once lived in the Cimmerian lagoons. The bone tissue of these remnants is completely replaced by phosphorus compounds and is a phosphorite mineral.

Less common are white bones and remains of woody vegetation. Holding such a fossil in your hand, you will be surprised at its great weight. This is the mineral barite (barium sulfate), which completely replaces the tissue of organic residues. Such mineral formations are called metamorphoses.

There is little barite in the Kerch ores, and therefore it is of no practical importance here, but large deposits of this mineral are being developed to obtain barium, which is used in the chemical industry and medicine.

In the loose ore mass, individual crystals of gypsum of an exceptionally regular cut are often found, and although this mineral is not a rarity, one should nevertheless take this opportunity to collect here a collection of gypsum crystals.

Finishing the collection of minerals in the Kerch ores, it must be said that we did not get to know all the minerals they contain. There are a number of minerals that can only be found in the ore mass under a microscope, and there are those minerals and ore varieties that are found in the deeper zones of the deposit; they can only be recovered by drilling or driving fairly deep mine workings.

The ores exposed in the cliff have not always been as we see them now. Prolonged exposure to external forces has largely changed the mineralogical composition and physical properties of ores; some minerals disappeared and new ones appeared. Such changes can sometimes occur in a very short time. For example, during the exploration work carried out at the Kerch deposits, from the depths, where the layers of ore are saturated with groundwater and where the oxygen of the air did not penetrate, a very dense, greenish-brown color, the so-called "tobacco" ore was extracted. Some varieties of this ore changed their color within a few days and turned into a loose brown ore, like the one we saw in the coastal cliff.

This is how sometimes an unusually fast change in the mineralogical composition of a stone occurs in new conditions, for example, in an environment rich in oxygen in the air and deprived of water.

Having finished collecting minerals and ores in the coastal cliff, you should familiarize yourself with the mine, which is located 6 kilometers from the village (you can go by bus). We recommend, by agreement with the administration of the iron ore plant, to see the quarries where the ore is mined, as well as the factories where the ore is enriched and agglomerated (from loose it turns into lumpy by sintering at a high temperature), in a word, to get an idea of \u200b\u200bboth of the whole process of preparing natural mineral raw materials for smelting metal from it.

Kerch iron ores have been known for a very long time. In ancient times, the inhabitants of the Crimea already knew about the ores. Crimean archaeologists tell us about this, who during excavations near Planernoye in the ancient burial grounds of Slavic tribes discovered pieces of blue paint, which turned out to be a beta-kerchenite mineral from Kerch ores. These ancient burials date back to the 8th century AD.

The first descriptions of Kerch ores belonged to travelers of the 18th century, but this information was fragmentary and did not give an idea of \u200b\u200bthe reserves and quality of ores.

For many years, the Kerch ores did not find practical use. And only beginning in 1894, various entrepreneurs, both Russian and foreign, tried to develop the Kerch deposits, However, due to extremely low technology and fierce competition, these capitalist enterprises often failed.

Only after the October Revolution, the metallurgical industry began to develop at a rapid pace on the basis of Kerch ores.

The Kdmyshburun mine and the metallurgical plant named after I. Voikova. Every year the extraction of ores grew and the production of pig iron and steel increased.

During the Great Patriotic War, the German fascist invaders destroyed the mine and the factory to the ground, completely destroyed the workers' settlements; the city of Kerch suffered no less.

After the war, the mine and its village were completely restored in a short time. Now it is a whole city with many large houses, a stadium, a park, a club. State-of-the-art machines are used at the mine, concentrator and sinter plant. Ore mining is fully mechanized.

Iron ores are not the only chemical sedimentary formations in Crimea. Even in our time, the accumulation of chemical precipitation is taking place before our eyes.

There are many salt lakes in Crimea, many of them are of marine origin. In the recent geological past, these lakes were the gulfs of the Black and Azov Seas, which, over time, were separated from the sea by sandbanks and spits washed by sea waves, and turned into coastal lakes.

However, these lakes have not lost contact with the sea. Sea water easily seeps through narrow sandy spits, replenishing the lake, the waters of which are constantly evaporating. Thus, the concentration of salts in the water of the lakes is gradually increasing.

In hot summers, when the water evaporating from the lakes does not have time to be compensated by the seawater seeping through the spit, the concentration of salts in the lake water increases so much that crystals of these salts form. Salt crystals are the first to precipitate, covering the bottom of the shallow lake and its coast with a white crust. In some Crimean lakes, self-deposited table salt has long been mined.

In addition to table salt (sodium chloride), the lakes also contain other salts: magnesium chloride, sodium sulfate (Glauber's salt), calcium sulfate (gypsum) and some other valuable salts.

Especially rich in salts is the huge bay of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov - Eastern Sivash. It communicates with the sea by only one narrow strait in the Genichesk area and therefore resembles a large coastal lake, separated from the sea by a narrow spit 120 kilometers long - the Arabat arrow.

The bottom silt of some Crimean lakes has valuable medicinal properties and is widely used by many Crimean health resorts and mud baths.

In the Crimea, on the Kerch Peninsula, there is a deposit of fossil salts, for example, a rather significant deposit of gypsum near the village of Marfovka. A layer of gypsum with a thickness of up to 4-5 meters is being developed, the extracted gypsum is transported to Kerch, where alabaster is produced from it, which is widely used in construction work and medicine. However, the gypsum layer of this deposit is heavily contaminated with an admixture of clay and consists of small crystals closely pressed to each other. It is quite difficult to find beautiful large transparent crystals, and therefore you will have to be content with samples of this mineral collected in ore deposits.

This is how we end our brief acquaintance with the main sedimentary rocks of the Crimea, their most interesting minerals and the processes of destruction and creation that created this group of rocks, most widespread in Crimea.

I don't like pebble beaches, so I always opt for sandy beaches. Is our Black Seahas not only a large selection of hotels and attractions, but also a huge selection of beaches. Anyone can find a beach to their liking. It remains only to find out where there are rocky beaches on the Black Sea and where are sandy ones.

Where there are rocky beaches on the Black Sea

Most of the famous resorts have pebble beaches. For example:

• Lazarevskoe;
• Kabardinka;
• Dzhubga;
• Resorts of Crimea;
• Resorts of Abkhazia.

I cannot swim on pebble beaches, but many people choose these for several reasons. Pros of pebble beaches:

• purity and transparency of water;
• stones and pebbles do not stick to the body like sand;
• better visibility underwater.

But pebble and rocky beaches have not only advantages. Minuses:

• sharp stones;
• the risk of cutting your legs;
• stones and pebbles are very hot in the sun;
• the need to wear special slippers for swimming.

Not everyone puts on special bathing slippers. For some, pebbles are a wonderful foot massager. But I still remember how a wave hit me right on the stones. It ended badly. The legs were bruised and cut. And I'm not the only one who has encountered this.

Where there are sandy beaches on the Black Sea

On Black seayou can easily find sandy shores. Most of the sandy beaches are located in Anapa. You can find a good sandy beach in Gelendzhik.It is small (about 500 meters long), but without pebbles. The sand is also very hot in the middle of the day, but it is easier to run on it without shoes. Try running without shoes over pebbles and stones. Sandy beaches have their drawbacks. The disadvantages include the following:

• sand sticks to wet skin, especially sunscreen;
• the water is not so transparent, as the sand is constantly shaken up by people who swim in the sea;
• during the wind, sand will fly into the eyes;
• algae grow on beaches where there is sand, not pebbles.

Sandy beaches are very nice if you are traveling with a child... Children will be more comfortable swimming. Sand is safer for children. The child will not fall on stones, so the risk of injury is greatly reduced. For seniors, this is also a great beach... On such beaches, the entry into the water is smoother. If you are going to a sandy beach, then you do not need to bring special swimming shoes with you.

There are a lot of beaches on the Black Sea. And you can always choose the beach that will be the most convenient and acceptable for you.

The sea stone (or pebbles), which we all loved to collect as children on the Black Sea beaches, has an interesting history. Millions of years ago, the formation of the Caucasus Mountains took place with a violent eruption of volcanoes, flows of solidified lava in the form of plates, fragments and small pieces were carried away by the current of mountain rivers and fell into the sea. The waves of the sea continued to grind and roll over the debris, crushing and rounding the stones.

Types of sea stones

The pebbles that we all love to play on the beach are a real rock, a witness to prehistoric times. Light porous pumice - the remains of fossilized volcanic magma, frozen far from the eruption site and trapped air - hence the numerous pores. The name of the sea stones, smoother and heavier, are basalts and tuffs. They formed at the exit of lava from the volcano. And the heaviest sea stone - granite - originated in its very throat.

The shiny, egg-shaped, rounded granite boulders that we can see on the beach are durable and shiny (thanks to a mixture of mica, quartz and feldspar) volcanic rock. Monuments and obelisks are erected from it, it is in demand by builders and designers. Other finishing stones - basalts, tuffs of different shades - are perfect for facing surfaces. Almost any sea stone can be used for applied or decorative purposes.

On the beach you can also find samples of semiprecious minerals - syenites, porphyrites, chrysolites. These beautiful sea stones are used to create jewelry and bijouterie. There is also a favorite of healers - chalcedony. These stones, even older than rocks, also come from volcanic craters.

Sea stones - description and composition

Another use for this wonderful is decorative figurines and garden sculptures. Nothing limits the flight of creative imagination here. Stones are grouped, glued, painted, decorated with whatever your heart desires. Crafts from sea stones, the photos of which you see in this article, can be made by everyone.

As a result, we see bright ladybirds, frogs, caterpillars, snails ... You can craft "vegetables" and "fruits", especially popular are "mushrooms" placed in different corners of the garden. Large stones of a suitable shape are painted in the form of tigers, sharks, crocodiles, dogs, cats and even fairy gnomes or elves. Ornamental pots or buckets filled with "strawberries" or "apples" made of painted stones will serve as an original decoration of the garden.

We master together with the child

But what to do when it's winter outside the window, summer cottage joys are forgotten, but at home, nevertheless, there is a bunch of pretty pebbles that you just want to attach somewhere! Try handcraft with your child. This fascinating activity will not only diversify long winter evenings, but will also leave you wonderful souvenirs as a souvenir, at one glance of which the mood will rise.

What kind of crafts from sea stones can you think of? Yes, the most diverse! The list of ideas is almost endless! For example, you can make a gnome or even a whole family of gnomes (or housewives). If you make them in the same style, then on the New Year's holiday you can wonderfully decorate the apartment by seating the figures in the corners, under the tree, on the bookshelves, etc.

Craft technology

For work, save, in addition to pebbles, paints and brushes for them, superglue, various materials for decor (what you can find) - scraps of fabric and fur, beads, threads or yarn, small feathers. Accessories in the form of "eyes" of characters are sold in sewing supply stores, but you can replace them with colored beads or cute flat small buttons.

Pebbles must be thoroughly washed and dried before work. Glue the eyes on the "face" pebbles, you can draw noses or stick large beads or balls of wool instead of them. Smiling mouths are painted with paints or "laid out" from bright woolen threads. You can also draw them on colored paper, cut and glue them. After that, make gnomes hair and beards from fur, thread, feathers or down - whatever is at hand.

The bodies of gnomes, like caps, can be easily made from colored patches, sewing them in the shape of a cone and filling them with something like cotton wool or scraps of synthetic resin. With the help of strong glue, the heads are attached to the bodies - funny figures are ready!

How to decorate a refrigerator

Fridge magnets are in every family with children. But we will have unusual ones - made of stones! Let's make monster magnets. We paint flat pebbles, washed and dried, in bright colors on both sides. After drying, draw "monsters" creepy mouths with bared teeth and glue the eyes.

We attach a magnet on the back of each stone with superglue. If the stones are large and heavy enough - a pair of magnets. The original decoration for the refrigerator is ready!

Best of all, oval-shaped pebbles make bright fish, as well as birds with unusual plumage. You can also make a mouse. In addition to pebbles and superglue, prepare scissors, paper and colored shreds. Ears and a tail for the future mouse are cut out of the fabric, glued in the right places on an oblong gray stone. Paws will serve as smaller pebbles, antennae - bundles of threads. Glue the eyes (you can pair them in the form of paper circles - the white ones are wider downward, on them there are smaller black ones on top). So the cute mouse is ready.

If you prefer a bird, then take a more round pebble, make a beak from a cloth of a suitable color (fold the shred into a triangle with a sharp end, glue the pebble to the head with the wide side). Mark the eyes in the right place, take care of the plumage. Done!

Creative aquarium

Best of all, fish are obtained from small elongated pebbles. Having made several pieces of different sizes, types and colors, you can organize an original decorative "aquarium" from a suitable box, complementing the composition with large "boulders" and "sea grass" made of thread or colored paper.

Another option is to "launch" our "fish" into a real aquarium with water as decorative elements (you have to take care of indelible paint and reliable materials for decoration).

So, we make fish. As usual, we wash the pebbles and dry them. With a simple pencil, mark on each of them the contours of the fins, head, tail. We paint the fish in different colors, cut out the tails and fins and make them separately, then glue them to the bodies.

Any material is suitable for this - colored paper, strips of fabric, shiny foil, even a suitable feather shape. We also glue the eyes in the right places (we take ready-made decorative elements or just shiny convex beads).

Additional ideas

If the fish is supposed to be "launched" into the aquatic environment, then the tail and fins can be cut out of transparent plastic from unnecessary plastic bottles of different colors. This material is truly versatile. It is possible to obtain a variety of decorative elements from it, it is easily cut, processed and takes the desired shape.

For example, thin, long and slightly curling stripes will make a great tail for our "goldfish" (especially if you take a brown or yellow bottle). Small pieces of plastic will produce hard, sharp "fins" that can be glued to the back of the fish.

A decorative aquarium can be filled with real plants in small pots, which are masked by the same sea pebbles. And if, in addition, you organize a special lighting for it and carefully think over the composition, such an aquarium will decorate any room - a living room, an entrance hall or a children's corner.