CABO DE GATA-NÍJAR NATURAL PARK

CABO DE GATA-NIJAR NATURAL PARK

Established in 1987, the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park includes a 37,500-hectare terrestrial component, spread out over the municipalities of Almería, Carboneras and Níjar, and a 12,012-hectare protected marine area. Offering amazing landscapes, unique in Europe, this park teems with a wide variety of life forms. Volcanic rock formations, areas of steppe and dry riverbeds extend as far as the coast. This was the first Maritime and Terrestrial Natural Park in the Iberian Peninsula, and it is the most extensive protected marine area in continental Europe, wherehuman activity is restricted in favour of conservation. In 2001 it was declared a Specially Protected Area of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMI).

The Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park is the driest place in Europe. Rain seldom falls here and, moreover, is irregular: half the year’s total rainfall can occur in a single day. Both temperatures and the number of hours of sunshine are very high. As if this were not enough, the prevailing winds here are dry and come from the south and southwest. In short, this is a subdesertic climate. The plants that colonise the area display a series of adaptations to these climatic condi­tions.

Moreover, we can see the Park’s two main peculiarities in terms of water: the barrier effect the Baetic Mountain Range has on the clouds coming from the Atlantic and the occult precipitation, a kind of sea fog, which brings moisture to the coastal areas.

                   THE CABO DE GATA GEOPARK

The Cabo de Gata Geopark belongs to the European Geopark Network (EGN), under the auspices of UNESCO. The EGN includes areas with an important geological heritage and helps find strategies to ensure their sustainable development.

The Cabo de Gata Geopark is one of the best examples of Neogene fossil volcanism in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. It allows visitors to walk through an open-air geological museum amongst volcanic calderas and domes, columnar joints, lava flows, fossilised sand dunes and coral reefs, etc. This allows us to reconstruct the recent history of the Mediterranean.

                 The Sierra de Cabo de Gata.

The Sierra de Cabo de Gata is one of the most unusual fossil volcanic sites in Europe and the largest volcanic element in SE Spain.

Moreover, the current relief is the result of the action of erosive agents on these rock formations: the sea, torrential rains, the wind… have all left their mark on the landscape.

The Sierra de Cabo de Gata is an individual mountain range, different to the others, formed from volcanic rocks during two stages of volcanicity, one from approximately 14 to 10 million years ago and the other from 9 to 7.5 million years ago. In reality, they represent only a small percentage of rocks of this nature, constituting the bottom of the Alboran seafloor and extending to Melilla, outcropping discretely in the Isla de Alboran.

Volcanic rocks from this area formed a landscape of volcanoes, submarine or emergent, individual or grouped, to form small islands.

These volcanic structures are recognisable in the terrain of Cabo de Gata, in many cases, where they are seen to form steep, more or less conical hills in the area: Los Frailes, Mesa de Roldan, Cerro de los Lobos, La Tortola, etc. Brecciated volcanic rocks (formed from fragments of different composition or aspect) are very abundant, resulting from diverse volcanic processes: differential cooling of distinct parts of lava flows, eruptions, nuee ardentes, avalanches down the sides of volcanoes, etc.

                Depressions

The rocks that occupy the low-lying areas of the Almerían landscape, Modern depressions such as the Almanzora Valley, Andarax Valley, Tabernas, Sorbas Basin, Campo de Níjar plain or El Poniente, consists of geologically young material, accumulated in the last 15 million years, while the Mediterranean Sea  was surrounded the mountains and the volcanoes of Cabo de Gata forming a small archipelago. The Betic mountains, and in general all of the Iberian Peninsula, were uplifted from the depths of the Mediterranean Sea in these marine inlets the products of Sedimentary erosion of the emerged land accumulated: boulders, pebbles, gravel, sand and mud. Limestone rocks also formed from the accumulation of the remains of marine creatures. In a changing global climate, the

region passed through cold and much warmer periods.

In the warm periods, the seawater temperature (in the western Mediterranean) was similar to those of the tropics today, in the order of 20º C, and coral reefs developed along the margins of islands and emerged lands. Theses coral reefs, like those of Purchena, Cariatiz, Nijar, Mesa Roldan, etc., are amongst the best fossil examples that exist in the world.

In colder periods, the western Mediterranean had a temperature similar to today, and limestones were formed from the remains of red algae, bryozoans, molluscs etc., like those occurring on the actual seafloor of the platform that encircles Cabo de Gata. These conditions, or yet colder ones, prevailed in the region from 5 million years ago.

                    The coastal strip

The coastal steppe, dunes and the former lagoons, which were turned into saltpans and surrounded by an area of tamarisk and common reed beds, are the main natural habitats in this part of the Park. They are populated by different species of plants particularly adapted to survive in environments with very high concentrations of salt: halophytes. A very important plant in this environment is the jujube species Ziziphus lotus, a large shrub that is home to an important animal and plant community. They are one of the few examples of harmony between a human activity and the conservation of the natural balance. Already exploited by the Romans, their location next to the sea facilitates the direct entry of water with the prevailing westerly winds.

The key factor behind the biodiversity of the saltpans is that a relatively stable water level is maintained throughout the year, unlike the situation that occurs in most of the natural lagoons in Andalusia, which dry out in summer. The diversity and large number of living organisms in such a unique environment varies, over the course of the seasons, depending on the characteristics of the different pools. 

 THE SEA

“Beneath the waves, the semidesertic land gives way to a tropical exuberance: vast meadows, home to numerous organisms, and rocks where every last nook and cranny is inhabited. An explosion of life that takes on all the shapes and colours imaginable.”

Its marine beds have extensive meadows of posidonea. This plant is similar to green algae, and its proliferation gives rise to real underwater forests that are home to a wide variety of marine fauna: crabs, octopus and fish, including the pen shell, the biggest endangered bivalve in the Mediterranean, considered to be a real natural gem. Buried in the plains of sand and mud there is a wealth of varied fauna - small but vital to the health of the ecosystem as a whole. The rocky sea beds demonstrate extraordinary changes in shape and colour: algae, false corral and a wide variety of fish, including the grouper, also known as "rey del roquedo" (king of the rock fish).