In 2021, UNESCO declared 6 October as the International Geodiversity Day. This year’s theme is “One Earth, Many Stories”.
This is our story: A new conglomerate deposit was discovered in a local quarry near the village of Jankūnai, Akmenynė municipality, Šalčininkai district. These conglomerates were discovered on 19 July 2021 by Lt. Dr Vytautas Račkauskas, geologist, KASP 810 company soldier, volunteer, who was performing border protection duties at the time.
On 21 September 2025, participants in the 15th National Geological Heritage Day visited these conglomerates, measured them, and discussed their origin. By mutual agreement of the event participants, this natural creation was named after its discoverer, Vytautas.
In Lithuania, conglomerate outcrops on the earth’s surface are a relatively rare phenomenon, which is why most of them are natural heritage sites – the Šeimyniškiai cliffs, the Šventoji (Skališkiai) cave near Vilnius, the Dovainoniai and Žiegždriai outcrops on the shores of the Kaunas Lagoon, the Stakiai cliffs (Dieveniškės), and Ožkų Pečius near Verknė.
This rock consists of sediments of various sizes, ranging from fine sand grains to large boulders bound together by cementing material, usually calcite. The name conglomerate comes from the Latin word “conglomeratus” meaning “glued together” or “pressed together”.
Conglomerates form in two stages: first, a layer or coarse, water-permeable material forms; second, dissolved hydrocarbonates that have entered the layer with groundwater crystallize due to concentration and turn into calcite or aragonite.
All magmatic and metamorphic rocks are erratic, i.e. “imported” from the north during the ice ages, whereas conglomerates are rocks that were definitely formed in Lithuania.
Dr Jonas Satkūnas
NRC Laboratory of Climate and Water Research
Vytautas conglomerates. Photos by I. Baumilaitė-Čeponė
