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).
