Torysh
Interesting facts
- The spheres range from the size of a marble to the size of a car, and many of the largest are around three to four metres across.
- They formed on the bed of the ancient Tethys Ocean, the sea that once separated the continents of the north and south.
- Besides shells and sand grains, the nucleus of a sphere could be something as small as a fossil shark tooth.
- Published estimates of the spheres' age vary widely, from about 60 million years to as much as 180 million years.
- Similar giant concretions occur in New Zealand, on Russia's Franz Josef Land and in California, but Mangyshlak has them in the thousands.
- Some of the balls have fused together in pairs or clusters, while others are flattened rather than perfectly round.
- Torysh lies near Kyzylkala, a medieval trading settlement linked with caravan routes of the Silk Road.
Why it is worth it
Torysh, often called the Valley of Balls, is a stretch of semi-desert on the Mangyshlak Peninsula in western Kazakhstan where the ground is scattered with near-perfect stone spheres. The smallest are only 10–15 centimetres in diameter; many are around three to four metres across, and they lie singly or in clusters on the bare steppe, some still half-embedded in the soft rock from which they are slowly emerging. Others have split open along their layers, revealing an internal structure like the rings of an onion. The effect, in an otherwise empty landscape near the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, is strange enough to look deliberately placed.
The balls are concretions — a type of rock formation found in many parts of the world, though Torysh has some of the largest examples. They began on the floor of an ancient sea, where a small hard nucleus such as a shell fragment, grain of sand or mineral crystal attracted minerals precipitating out of the surrounding sediment, usually calcite, silicates and iron oxides. Layer by layer, a hard sphere grew around it, cemented into rock far tougher than the sediment in which it formed. Over tens of millions of years, uplift brought these layers to the surface, and erosion stripped away the softer rock around the spheres, leaving them stranded on the plain. Fossils of Jurassic plants have been found at and near the site, and the salty ground supports only hardy shrubs and grasses.
Local tradition offers a different account: when hordes of enemies invaded Mangyshlak, the people prayed for deliverance, and a storm of rain, thunder and lightning turned the invaders to stone — leaving the region's countless odd rock formations, the spheres of Torysh among them. The valley lies at the western end of the Western Karatau ridge; the mountain of Sherkala and the village of Shetpe lie not far away.
Getting there
Torysh lies on the Mangyshlak Peninsula, roughly 150 km north of the city of Aktau and about 17 km east of the village of Tauchik. The nearest airport is Aktau International Airport (SCO), about 67 km away in a straight line.
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From the encyclopaedia
Torysh is a valley close to the village of Shetpe and the mountain Sherkala in Mangystau, Kazakhstan. Also known as "The Valley of Balls", the area features many spherical rock formations which have formed naturally across the landscape in the sedimentary rock, through a concretion process. It is near the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea and the medieval trading settlement of Kyzylkala.
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