Applicant UNESCO Global Geopark Maestrazgo, Spain Geographical
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Template/example 2016 Applicant UNESCO Global Geopark Maestrazgo, Spain geographical and geological summary Please replace the map below with a map of your region, using a standard UN map showing the location of the aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark as shown in this example. Please replace the map below with a map of the aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark indicating the boundary, cities, general geographic points, as shown in this example. Template/example 2016 1. Physical and human geography- 1500 characters Including for example: location, geographical coordinates, surface area, distance to main cities/to the border, landscape, relief type (mountain, plains, valleys, caves…), maximum and minimum elevation, climate, nature, administrative region and country, number of inhabitants, economic activity, settlements, infrastructure, etc. The aspiring Geopark is located between the geographic coordinates (DMS): 40º13'23 '' - 41º0'6.6 '' N and 0º4'15.18 '' - 1º1'17.78''W in the eastern central region of the province of Teruel (Aragón, Spain) in the catchment of the Guadalope river. With around 14,000 inhabitants, it has an extension of 2,622 km2. The area belongs to the Iberian Range, a dry mountain land characterized by hot summers and cold winters and with deeply incised valleys. It is mostly a mountainous area with Mediterranean influence with its highest peak at 1997 m and the lowest at 480 m AMSL. The area lies in the former kingdom of Aragón and in the Middle Ages it was named "Maestrazgo" by the "maestres", a military order which administered this region. The Maestrazgo Geopark covers 43 Municipatilies from six different Comarcas of the Teruel province: Andorra - Sierra de Arcos, Bajo Aragón, Cuencas Mineras, Gúdar - Javalambre, Maestrazgo and Comunidad de Teruel. They conform a vast territory with a wide heritage, both cultural and natural. Its historical legacy and its cultural and ethnographic heritage braid a dense fabric between the different municipalities that compose it. These lands, which have been inhabited since prehistoric times, await the vestiges of this evidence as important groups of parietal art. The medieval past marked the character of this frontier land and was reflected in a territory dotted with castles, towers and defensive walls, some of them still standing. So this territory combines an amazing geology with, among others, 10 Historic Sites, 21 Monuments, more than 600 archaeological sites and two important sets of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Arc of the Iberian Peninsula included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. 2. Geological features and geology of international significance – 1500 characters The aUUGp area is located within the Aragonese western branch of the Iberian Mountain Range (formed during the Alpine Orogeny), on the border with the Ebro depression and in the confluence zone with the Coastal-Catalan Chain. The aUUGp is characterized by a wide and varied number of Mesozoic and Cenozoic stratigraphic formations, both deposited in marine platform as well as in transitional and continental environments. The Maestrazgo presents a geological heritage of exception, which is patent through four Natural Monuments (Government of Aragon Natural Network) and 38 (of the 67 Geosites that includes the current inventory of the Maestrazgo Geopark) are in the Aragón Geosites Inventory. Among a long list of paleontological sites -only in relation to dinosaurs there are 76 cataloged paleontological sites-, 7 are declared Assets of Cultural Interest (Paleontological Zone). It also has 2 Global Geosites of international relevance: Jurassic-Cretaceous dinosaur sites in Galve (Geosite FC006) and the Mesozoic series in the Maestrazgo area (Geosite MZ004). Special mention deserves the presence of 16 new genera and 108 new species of fossils discovered and described within the aspirant Geopark citing the first new dinosaur described in Spain: Aragosaurus ischiaticus. Among the most representative and complete exposures of the Cretaceous geological history in the Iberian Mountain Range we can find the stratigraphic succession in the Maestrazgo Geopark due to the splendid spatial continuity of its exposures, the large time span o its stratigraphic record (from the Barremian to the Campanian), the richness and variety of facies and fossils, and the natural values of the area where it is located. .