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 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 spirals of the shells and their varied shapes are visible to the naked eye. The value of the place is not scenic but scientific. The reserve was established in 1954 and declared a protected area by Law no. 5 of 2000. Extracting or breaking the shells is forbidden by law.