Layers of Ronda, Spain: Rocks, History, Culture
An Amazing City
The tour leader said we were next visiting Ronda, a city built on rocks.
“A city built on rocks.” That is an understatement. I was amazed. I stood and looked, then turned and looked from another angle, looking and turning over and over again, while taking tons of photos.
It was beautiful, but I was puzzled. I didn’t understand the geology of what I was seeing. Then later, I researched the rocks of Ronda. After all, I am a retired earth science teacher.
What were those layers of rocks? I found that “Outcropping between Marbella and Ronda is a range of peaks called the Sierra Bermeja. They are composed of a rock rarely seen at the surface called peridotite, which here is several kilometres thick. In fact, this area is the world’s largest outcrop of this type of rock.”
“Peridotite is the dominant rock type of the upper Mantle — the lithospheric Mantle that sits below the Continental Crust. It originates naturally at depths greater than about 70km — hence its rarity at surface. Studies of this particular body of peridotite show that at some stage it has been at depths greater than 150km.” (Source)
Every earth science/geology teacher should visit Ronda, Spain. It is amazing.
