Plaka Park was created by the Museum of Natural History of the Lesvos Petrified Forest on an area of 70 acres on the small peninsula of the same name. The area is an important fossil site.
In the two parts of the Park, from the research work of the Museum of Natural History of the Lesvos Petrified Forest, important plant fossils have been uncovered, mainly root systems and lower parts of trunks that make up a geotope of rare natural beauty.
In Plaka Park, pine trees and a wide variety of fruiting plants (angiosperms) have been identified, which do not appear in such a wide variety in any other terrestrial location, thus composing the landscape of the vegetation on Lesvos 20 million years ago. Plant fossils corresponding to the present-day pine (Pinuxylon and Pinus), cinnamon and laurel trees (Laurinoxylon, Cinnamomum polymorphum, Dafnogene polymorphum), poplar (Populoxylon), sycamore (Platanoxylon) and palm trees (Palmoxylon) have been identified.
Today, 46 excavation sites of petrified trees can be visited. Most fossilized trunks are found standing, i.e. in the natural growth position of the trees.
Among the finds is the giant petrified trunk (No. 1), 13.7m in circumference. and 3.70 m in diameter, which is – according to the data of the world literature – the largest standing fossilized trunk in the entire world. In the coastal area of the Park, the particularly impressive fossilized tree trunk, 14m long, dominates.
