Kummakivi means strange rock, located in a beautiful jungle of Ruokolahti, a municipality in the South Karelia region, southeast of Finland. In fact, Kummakivi consists of 2 rocks, one lying on the flat ground, round in shape and quite smooth, while the other has a large mass, up to 7m in length, lying precariously, stacked on top of it. strangely with the supposedly rather small touchpoint.
Many people say that with such a “fragile” position, the rock above can fall at any time. People can’t believe that the huge rock can stand so spectacularly… But quite the opposite, it holds its balance very well, as if it is firmly anchored to the bedrock, without any vibrations. shake or fall, even, even if a human tries to push, the Kummakivi rock will not move.
The ancient inhabitants who lived around this area were once bewildered by this strange natural sight. They tried everything to explain this phenomenon. Finnish mythology is also full of stories involving supernatural beings to explain the Kummakivi rock. It is said that the giant with extraordinary strength had a habit of throwing rocks around, creating caves and strange holes in the inside that created the Kummakivi rock.
However, geologists offer an explanation for the formation of two completely different rocks. They believe that Kummakivi was formed by being washed away by glaciers, left here during the last ice age. When the glaciers retreated from the northern region about 12,000 years ago, these two rocks were left behind, becoming the balance rock Kummakivi today. However, this is just a hypothesis, the actual formation process of Kummakivi is still a mystery.
In addition to providing people with interesting stories, balance stones are also used for scientific purposes. For example, in the US researchers have used balance rocks as a kind of natural seismometer. Indeed, the balanced rocks can’t tell us when past earthquakes occurred but are an indication that the area hasn’t suffered earthquakes strong enough to topple them.
Information about the amount of force required to move these rocks, the magnitude of past earthquakes, the recurrence intervals of large earthquakes can be obtained, which is important for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis.