Repedea Hill Fossil Site

Repedea Hill Fossil Site lies in Bârnova commune, Iași County, about 9 km south of the city, next to the TV relay on Repedea Hill. The hill rises to 353 m and has a steep edge facing the Bahlui valley and Iași, on the boundary between the Central Moldavian Plateau and the Moldavian Plain. Access is from the DN24 road (Iași-Vaslui), along a dirt track. In 1862 Grigore Cobălcescu, the first professor of geology and mineralogy at the University of Iași, discovered a rich fossil deposit here, embedded in oolitic limestone. His study, "Calcarul dela Răpidea" (The Limestone of Repedea), is regarded as the founding document of Romanian geology. Many palaeontological, stratigraphic, sedimentological and geochemical studies have followed. The reserve protects a mass of limestone made of cemented fossil shells, left behind when the Sarmatian Sea retreated, and considered representative of the Moldavian Platform. More than 40 species of fossil molluscs, both bivalves and snails, have been identified, some of them new to science, such as Cardium cobalcescui. Visitors can see limestone walls, former oolitic limestone quarries and an amphitheatre-shaped hollow with small caves, which locals used as shelter in times of war. The site has been protected since the 1950s: it is considered the first geological reserve in Romania (1953) and was declared a natural monument by Council of Ministers Decision 1625 of 1 August 1955. Today it is a protected area of national interest (code RONPA0558, IUCN category IV), with a 5.80 ha reserve and a 38.50 ha buffer zone. The place is also used for picnics, and sources report litter, fires, landslides and the removal of stone from the cliffs.