Dozens of boulders and stones of various sizes were discovered during the construction of the Carolina Metro Technical Station and are now gaining new life in the urban space. The boulders, which are remnants of the Ice Age, were excavated and found during earthworks. Now, instead of being considered construction waste, they will be used in a variety of ways to serve the people of Warsaw.
More than 50 smaller stones, 60-70 cm in diameter, have been delivered to the Włochy District. These natural barriers will act as parking blocks along Chestnut Avenue in Rybnicka Street, protecting the natural monument from cars. Meanwhile, the larger boulders, weighing around five tonnes, will be moved to Bielany and Żoliborz, where they will act as bases for commemorative plaques, enriching the urban space and emphasising the historical context of these places.
The erratic boulders unearthed at the construction site of the Underground are witnesses of the Ice Age several hundred thousand years ago. At that time, the ice sheet formed on the Scandinavian Peninsula grew (to a thickness of several kilometres) as a result of the cooling of the climate and slid southwards into the European lowlands. The glacial masses froze to the ground, and as they “wandered” they tore off large sections of the ground and transported them. The glacier advance only stopped when the climate warmed up. At that time, the glacial masses melted and left behind all the material brought from Scandinavia, including hard, abrasion- and weather-resistant rock fragments. These blocks (mainly granites), despite their high hardness, do not have sharp edges; they are bruised by movement and abrasion in the glacial mass.
There were several such glacier migrations (glaciations) during the Pleistocene epoch (lasting from about 2.5 million years to about 12,000 years). The boulders unearthed during the construction of the last section of the M2 line come from the Middle Polish glaciation – the Oder Stadial (ca. 300-200 thousand years ago), when the ice sheet covered almost the whole of Poland and reached as far as the Sudetes and the Świętokrzyskie Mountains.
The Greenery Management Board of the City of Warsaw, like the District of Włochy, plans to use most of the boulders donated by Warsaw Metro to protect green areas in road lanes from encroachment and illegal parking. 75 boulders of varying diameters will also find their way into Warsaw’s parks. Depending on the characteristics of the site, the boulders will serve different functions. Some of them will serve to add variety to the area and create distinctive reference points, becoming natural signposts. In the Moat Park, for example, boulders will be collected for the future so-called ‘renaturalisation’ (restoration of the environment to its natural state) of the park’s watercourses. It is planned to incorporate them into bank reinforcements, create water cisterns or small architecture in the form of seating areas. In some parks, the boulders will also have a function of protecting the greenery.
Further transports will carry larger boulders to, among others, Park Skaryszewski and Park Cichociemnych, as well as to the Vistula boulevards. Smaller ones will be found, for example, in Pole Mokotowskie and in Żeromski Park. Thanks to this initiative, stones that have witnessed prehistoric events will find a new use, enriching urban space and protecting nature from destructive human activity.
Source: Warsaw CityHall
Photos: Warsaw Metro
Read also: Squares, Squares, Parks | Greenery | City | Warsaw | whiteMAD on Instagram
