Description of the attraction
The natural monument "Ostrov Gustoy" is located in the Vyborg district, 2 km west of the city of Vysotsk, 7 km from Vyborg to the southwest.
The "Thick Island" was organized as a regional geological natural monument in 1976. Its area is 54 hectares. The purpose of creating a natural monument is to preserve the original forms of relief: "sheep's foreheads" and unique outcrops of rapakivi granites to the surface. Specially protected objects on the territory of the "Thick Island" are the relief "lamb's foreheads" and granite-rapakivi.
"Lamb's foreheads" are rocks smoothed by the movement of the glacier, which are made of bedrock protruding to the surface. Especially smooth and gentle are the slopes that were facing the direction of the movement of the glacier, the slopes on the other side are often steep and uneven. Groups of small "sheep's foreheads" are also called curly rocks. Sheep foreheads are found in the continental and mountainous zones of ancient and modern glaciation. "Lamb's foreheads" are especially common on the territory of the Baltic Shield.
Granite-rapakivi (translated from Finnish "rotten, crumbling stone") is a type of granite, a rock with an acidic composition. Granite-rapakivi consists of 40% orthoclase, 30% idiomorphic quartz, 20% oligoclase. also contains a small amount of admixtures of accessory minor minerals (2%), such as amphibole, ortite, diopside, sphene, apatite, magnetite, etc. The coarse grain of this granite is clearly visible on the rapakivi cut. In terms of durability, it is much inferior to samples of fine-grained granite. This type of granite can be colored in different shades of brownish-pink, sometimes greenish, reddish and black rapakivi can be found. In addition to the Leningrad region and Karelia, rapakivi granite is widespread in Finland, Sweden, and Ukraine (Cherkasy region). By the way, the Alexander Column and the monolith under the Bronze Horseman are made of this stone.
The territory of the natural monument "Gusty Island" is promising for ecological tourism, as a separate object, as well as for organizing tourist routes along the protected natural monuments of the water area of the Gulf of Finland and the Karelian Isthmus.
Island Dense has the shape of a horseshoe in plan. The northwestern part of the island is a granite rock with a height of about 30 m, stretching for half a kilometer and smoothed by a glacier - a gentle slope of "sheep's foreheads". The eastern coast of Gustoy Island is steep (the height of the cliff is about 20 m). This is due to tectonic disruption. Polished rocks can be found in other parts of the Gustoy Island. On their surface, large ovoids are clearly distinguished - rounded feldspar crystals bordered with crystals of mica and quartz, which are typical of rapakivi granites.
A picturesque bay juts out into the center of the Dense Island - a favorite place for yachtsmen. Water spaces and many wooded islands with rocks, indented coastline, "lamb's foreheads", long and narrow bays - all this forms a picturesque landscape of skerries that distinguishes the northern coast of Scandinavia and is not typical for other regions of the Leningrad region.
On the territory of the natural monument, it is forbidden to develop and extract granite, to make fires.
