Gibraltar Limestone consists of greyish-white or pale-gray compact, and sometime finely crystalline, medium to thick bedded limestones and dolomites that locally contain chert seams. This formation comprises about three quarters of the

Rock of Gibraltar The Rock of Gibraltar (from the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq , meaning "Mountain of Tariq ibn Ziyad, Tariq") is a monolithic limestone mountain high dominating the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated near the end of a nar ...

near the southernmost tip of the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

. Geologists have found various poorly preserved and badly eroded and rolled marine

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s within it. The fossils found in the Gibraltar Limestone include various

brachiopod Brachiopods (), phylum (biology), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear e ...

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

s, echinoid fragments,

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

s, pelecypods, and

stromatolite Stromatolites ( ) or stromatoliths () are layered Sedimentary rock, sedimentary formation of rocks, formations (microbialite) that are created mainly by Photosynthesis, photosynthetic microorganisms such as cyanobacteria, sulfate-reducing micr ...

s. These fossils indicate an Early Jurassic age (Lower Lias) for the deposition of the Gibraltar Limestone.Rose, E. P. F., and M. S. Rosenbaum (1991). ''A Field Guide to the Geology of Gibraltar''. Gibraltar: The Gibraltar Museum. p. 192.

References

* Geology of Gibraltar Jurassic System of Europe Jurassic Spain Limestone formations {{Europe-geologic-formation-stub

See also

References