The Pobiti Kamani Natural Reserve has for many years been known as the "Petrified Forest". When you visit it is not hard to see why - the many limestone columns look very much like pertified trees.
The 253 acres of limestone columns has mystified and fascinated people all along, and the Pobiti Kamani Natural Reserve was the first Bulgarian Natural Reserve created, in 1937.
A column can be up to 6 meters or 20 feet high, and a width between 0,5 meters and 2,5 meters or between 1.6 and 8.2 feet.
So how were the columns created? Some 50 million years ago the area was a seabed made of sand. The marine life was among other things tiny animals with lime exoskeletons like snails, mussles, clams and such. When these creatures died, their remains sunk to the bottom of the sea and into cracks and crevasses in the seabed, forming lime columns down into the sand.
As the seabed was raised and became land, the sand around the columns made up of the shells and skeletons of the many, many tiny animals eroded away and now the columns that look like ancient trees standing in solitary majesty.
Walking around the columns is somewhat unreal - it is somewhat like visiting a volcanous area with the most unusual shapes and forms.
In the case of the Pobiti Kamani Natural Reserve, you are in effect walking around among stalagmites that hung from a seabed that has ceased to exist and today look more like stalagtites.
Next - The Thracian Tomb in Pomorie
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