Meaning of trovant | Babel Free

Definitions

A bulbous stone which slowly grows over time and "reproduces" when pieces break off and become new concretions, for which reason such a stone is sometimes called a "living stone" or "living rock".

Examples

“The Cochirleni formation is mainly made of sands and quartzous sandstones, richly glauconitic, generally shaly, with trovants; the typical section lies in the Danube's cliff, from the Hinog Valley towards the south up to Cochirleni and on the Pestera-Cochirleni Valley up to Ivrinezu Mic.”

“Trovants: the "living" stones of Romania formed as high porosity spherical sandstone concretions developed around a fossil. […] The trovant geological reservation at Costești, Romania, hold⟳[s] a large and diverse in size and shape⟳ collection of trovants embedded in alluvial strata. A new 3D images of a small-size cm size trovant (a) were acquired using a[…]”

“The concrete substance tends to keep⟳ the stones roundish, but if it bubbles off to one side for any number⟳ of reasons, the sidebubble can get⟳ too heavy and fall⟳ off - which seems to be how trovants "reproduce⟳." The word "trovant” is a boiled-down German word that means “cemented sand.” The word is relatively new; geologists believe⟳ that the first trovants were created some 5 million years ago, during the Middle Miocene era.”

CEFR level