Encyclopedia of European and Asian Regional Geology

1997 Edition

Gibraltar

  • E. Burns
  • R. W. Fairbridge
Reference work entry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4495-X_35
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Gibraltar is a British possession on the S tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Its name is a corruption of ‘Gebel Tariq’, or Tariq's Rock, after the Moor who conquered it in AD 711. It has been successively garrisoned by the Moors, the Spanish and the British (Rose and Rosenbaum, 1991).

The ‘Rock’ consists of Jurassic limestones and shales ( Rose and Rosenbaum, 1991; Fig. 235). The Gibraltar Limestone is the dominant unit. It is 600 m thick and dolomitic at its base, with layers of dolomite and limestone toward the top. It contains stromatolites and early Jurassic marine fossils ( Rose and Rosenbaum, 1991). The limestone lies above the Little Bay Shale, which consists of mudstones with thin lenses of sandstone and pebble conglomerate and thicker beds of dolomite. This shale has no fossils. The Catalan Bay Shale is exposed beneath inverted beds of the limestone and consists of interbedded limestone and mudstones, with middle Lias age ammonites ( Rose and Rosenbaum, 1991).
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Cross reference

  1.  Spain

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© Chapman & Hall 1997

Authors and Affiliations

  • E. Burns
  • R. W. Fairbridge

There are no affiliations available