GEOsfera

GEOsfera is an ecological and geological education centre in Jaworzno, set out in the basin of the former Sadowa Góra Triassic limestone quarry. On about 8 hectares there are a geological educational trail, a dinosaur park with life-size models, a sensory garden, a graduation tower and a playground. Admission is free.

Fossils in the quarry

Sadowa Góra is built of Triassic limestones, marly limestones and marls. Rock extraction has been known since the 18th century, and was carried out intensively from 1954 until the end of the 1990s, mainly for the Szczakowa Cement Works. More than 7 million tonnes of rock were extracted, and the quarry covers about 24 ha.

It was only the extraction that exposed layers with the remains of echinoderms, molluscs, cephalopods, fish and bones of the reptile nothosaur from 230 million years ago. The first fragment of a nothosaur rib was described in the literature in 2010. The palaeontological site of megaripples is also valuable, a fossil record of powerful tropical hurricanes that swept through here millions of years ago. In the eastern part of the quarry there is a cave with karst forms.

How the centre came about

The project of the Ecological and Geological Education Centre was prepared jointly by the geological administration of the Jaworzno City Office and the Upper Silesian Branch of the Polish Geological Institute in Sosnowiec, and it was co-financed by the European Union. The centre opened in 2014 in the western part of the quarry. In 2018 GEOsfera received the main prize of the Ministry of the Environment, “Geology 2018”. The graduation tower was put into use in 2019, and in 2022 the SOWA Science Centre was opened, a project of the Copernicus Science Centre and the Ministry of Education and Science.

What you can see and do

On the grounds there are an educational pavilion and a pavilion with a megaripple exhibition, a geological educational trail, a sensory park with a heath, a viewing footbridge, an amphitheatre, a barbecue area and a playground. More than 40 thousand plants have been planted, and in places the area is semi-natural, with meadows where orchids grow. The boards describing the plant collections of the sensory garden have descriptions in Braille. The centre also has a multimedia room and organises activities in which knowledge is gained through experience.

Next to it there is a brine graduation tower. From GEOsfera it is about 2.9 km to the Gródek Arboretum Park, managed by the same centre, and about 2.6 km to the Jaworzno Town Museum in the centre.

Practical information

• Address: Świętego Wojciecha 100, 43-600 Jaworzno.
• According to the town’s website admission to the grounds is free, and the site is lit around the clock. Cycling on the centre’s grounds is prohibited, and a route for cycling around it has been marked out.
• Getting there: by PKM Jaworzno city bus, line 304, GEOsfera stop (the bus is adapted for people with disabilities), or by car; there is a car park in the immediate vicinity.
• The centre building has a toilet adapted for wheelchair users.