Byrums raukar

Öland's finest rauk area

At Byrum is Öland's most famous and finest rau area. The strange stone pillars have been carved out for millions of years by the sea's movements towards the limestone. Parking is available in the south.

490 million years ago, the land mass to which Öland belongs was at the height of the southern tropics, in a tropical climate. Lime sludge began to be deposited in large coral reefs in warm, shallow seas. For a long time, the coral reefs were compressed under high pressure and the Öland limestone was formed. Researchers believe that it took 1000 years of limestone deposits for one millimeter of today's limestone to form. The thickness of the Öland limestone deposits amounts to a maximum of 40 meters, which means that it took 40 million years for Öland's limestone bedrock to form.

Due to different clay mineral content, the hardness of the limestone varies. The rauks at Byrum have been formed when looser limestone was eroded away by the influence of the waves and left stone pillars of harder limestone. The area by Byrum is rich in fossils. Fossils are dead prehistoric animals that have sunk to the seabed and are embedded in sediments. The sediments have for a long time been compressed into a rock, in which the shapes of the animals have been preserved. At Byrum, fossils of the trilobite genus Asaphus occur, so abundant that it has been given the name of a layer in the limestone.

Keep in mind that it is not allowed according to Allemansrätten to knock fossils loose from blocks or bedrock. It is prohibited by law. Loose fossils and rocks are part of the land and belong to the landowner. Individual memorial stones or fossil fragments that have no economic value are allowed to be taken home.