Fossil beach, Spain

3D Model

Location: El Playazo de Rodalquilar, Almeria region, Spain

Longitude: -2.004319

Latitude: 36.857488

This outcrop displays three beaches of different ages. To the south (right in default view) there is an oolitic Pleistocene fossil beach made of cross-bedded dunes that formed in shallow water, and which now reach about 10 m a.s.l. at their highest point. Further north, on top of it sits a cemented beach (about 100 years old, about 1 m above the high tide mark), which contains recent shells and rounded black cobbles of pyroxene andesite (these were left behind by a nearby quarry that ceased operations about 100 years ago). To the north of that, the present-day sandy beach sits on top of the cemented beach. The recent beach sand also has a higher, older level, that has been fixed by vegetation and forms a terrace about 0.5 m high above the loose beach sand.