Snail Hill (Dealul cu Melci)

Snail Hill (Dealul cu Melci) is a palaeontological nature reserve in the Land of the Moți, on the territory of Nemeși village, Vidra commune, Alba County, on the left slope of the Arieșul Mic, at an altitude of about 650 m. The site protects a rich fossil-bearing point with gastropods, representative of the reef facies of the Senonian, a stage of the Upper Cretaceous, dating back 65–70 million years. Tens of millions of years ago, this region was covered by the warm waters of the Tethys Sea, a prehistoric ocean teeming with molluscs. After the sea withdrew, the sediments petrified, and today the hill is essentially a rock by the roadside, in which the perfectly preserved shells of over 35 mollusc species are embedded. The rock is an alternation of conglomerates with sandstones and marls, in which the dominant gastropod is Acteonella gigantea, alongside species of the genera Modiolus, Arca, Crassatella, Nerita, Natica and others. Up close, the fine spirals of the shells, their curved edges and varied shapes are visible to the naked eye — some the size of a fingernail, others as large as a fist — heavy and petrified, yet seemingly still alive. The value of the place is not scenic but scientific, being one of the most spectacular fossil sites in Transylvania. The reserve was established in 1954 and declared a protected area by Law no. 5 of 2000. Locals say that here time runs backwards, towards the origins — a natural impression before snails that wrote their story in stone over 65 million years ago. Extracting or breaking the shells is forbidden by law.