Helmersen rock field

Hausma küla

About ten thousand years ago, retreating glaciers left behind an enormous rock. It was too big to resist weathering and over some time it broke into eight large and a number of smaller rocks. These rocks are gathered close to each other on a half-hectare piece of land. When examined more closely, it can be seen which pieces fit each other.
By now, the island has accepted the rocks, found a nice place for each, surrounded them with junipers, pines and firs and covered them with moss. This remarkable collection of rocks was examined twice, in 1871 and 1879, by Gregor Helmersen – a Baltic German of Estonian origin, a professor at St. Petersburg Mining Institute and a member of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, the first chairman of Russian Geology Committee. He considered the boulders so amazing that he called it the best sample of boulders in the world. Now, his memory is saved in the name of the boulders he examined.

Gallery

It is a waypoint on the journey

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