The Kobyla Quarry is an abandoned pit quarry near the Koněpruské caves in the Czech Karst. Limestone mining in this quarry was stopped already in 1929. The extracted material was exported through a tunnel dug in the northern wall of the quarry. In 1970, the quarry was declared a protected natural creation due to its importance especially from the point of view of tectonics and archaeology.
In the quarry, massive Paleozoic (Primozoic) Lower Devonian pinkish crionids (mainly fossils of Lilies and Orthoceras cephalopods) Sliveneck limestone (rock age approx. 395 million years) were mined, which built the marginal zone of the marine limestone cliff on the hill called Zlatý kň. The Sliveneck limestones, together with the Könipruska reef limestones, formed during the Varisian folding (the period 390 – 310 million years ago) a solid, difficult to fold unit, onto which the older limestones of the Lochkov Formation (410 million years old) and the Silurian limestones of the Požar assemblage. The thrust of the mantle took place along a prominent fault, the so-called Očkové permism. The length of the shift is estimated to be up to 1 km. The overburden is clearly exposed in the upper part of the northern quarry wall (partially crushed limestone). Mining also uncovered karst phenomena. The Zlomená sluj cave has an upper floor developed according to the thrust surface of the Očkové pass and karst structures are exposed in it. In the Chlupáčova sluj cave, named after the prominent Czech geologist and pedagogue Dr. Ivo Chlupáč (1931 – 2002), skeletal remains of prehistoric animals were found. Important archaeological discoveries were also made here (remains of fireplaces and tools of prehistoric people). In one of the caves, an extensive profile of sediments from the last interglacial period (emm – 126 – 110 thousand years) and ice age (würm – 110 – 12 thousand years) has been preserved. The skeletal remains of fossil mammals are from the last interglacial and the last ice age. Bones and teeth of deer, lions, cave bears, hyenas, woolly rhinoceroses, mammoths and horses from Chlupačová sluje are now stored in the National Museum in Prague.
Karst researcher Jaroslav Petrbok also worked in the quarry, whose work is commemorated by a plaque in the quarry wall.
49°54'48.837"N, 14°4'49.472"E
