The Granada Basin, Depression of Granada or Granada Depression () is a totally enclosed valley in

Andalusia Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. The river

Genil The Genil River is the main (left) tributary of the river Guadalquivir in Andalusia, Spain. Known as ''Singilis'' in Latin, it bears a modern name derives from the Moorish rendering of the Roman name: ''Sinyil, Sannil'', and ''Sinnil''. Route The ...

runs through the valley upon exiting from the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

until it passes through the Infiernos de Loja. On the north it borders the

comarca A ''comarca'' (, , , ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain, and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, mark ...

Los Montes Los Montes is a Spanish ''Comarcas of Spain, comarca'' located in the northern part of the province of Granada, community of Andalusia, Spain. This territory limits with the Granada's counties of Baza in the northwest, Guadix in the east and sout ...

on the southern border of the Cordillera Subbética; on the north west are the Sierra de Loja and El Hacho; on the southwest the

Sierra Gorda The Sierra Gorda () is an Ecoregion, ecological region centered on the northern third of the List of states of Mexico, Mexican state of Querétaro and extending into the neighboring states of Guanajuato, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo and San Luis Po ...

; in the south the Sierra de la Almijara; and in the east the aforementioned Sierra Nevada. It is one of the series of valleys forming the

Surco Intrabético The Intrabaetic Basin ( or ''Depresión Intrabética'') is a discontinuous series of valleys in the Baetic System of Andalusia, Spain. Description The Intrabaetic Basin is a series of intermontane basins that separate the Penibaetic System t ...

. The two easiest points of communication with the outside world are the threshold between the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra de la Almijara (the Lecrin Valley) and the

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

of the River Genil in the Infiernos de Loja, which separates El Hacho from the Sierra Gorda. It runs roughly east–west for about and reaches its greatest width in the eastern part and its narrowest as it arrives at the Infiernos de Loja.

Geology

The depression has been enclosed since the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

era, possibly as early as the

Burdigalian The Burdigalian is, in the geologic timescale, an age (geology), age or stage (stratigraphy), stage in the early Miocene. It spans the time between 20.43 ± 0.05 annum, Ma and 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma (million years ago). Preceded by the Aquitanian (sta ...

. It took on its current shape by the end of the Miocene, acting as an enclosed

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of continental character, receiving

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock formed by the cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or deposited at Earth's surface. Sedime ...

material from all of the surrounding mountain ranges. The peak of this sedimentation activity was during the

Villafranchian Villafranchian age ( ) is a period of geologic time (3.5–1.0 Ma) spanning the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene used more specifically with European Land Mammal Ages. Named by Italian geologist Lorenzo Pareto for a sequence of terrestrial se ...

(the first phase of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

); at that time there appears to have been a

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

that caused a period of rhexistasy (dryness leading to lack of

ground cover Groundcover or ground cover is any plant that grows low over an area of ground, which protects the topsoil from erosion and drought. In a terrestrial ecosystem, the ground cover forms the layer of vegetation below the shrub layer known as the ...

) and intense erosion of all of the surrounding mountain ranges. Large pieces of detritus fell to the foot of the Sierra Nevada, such as the Cono de La Zubia, the conglomerate of the

Alhambra The Alhambra (, ; ) is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Muslim world, Islamic world. Additionally, the ...

or the block formation of the

Cono del Río Dúrcal Cono may refer to * Cono Christian School, a Presbyterian church near Walker, Iowa * City of New Orleans (train), ''City of New Orleans'', a passenger train operated by Amtrak from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Chicago, Illinois * Cono Township, Buch ...

. After this period of filling in, came a period of isostatic deepening. The weight of the recent deposits bore down on the sediments below, at the same time as erosion decreased and the mountains began to grow. At the same time, the drainage basin that had basically been an

inland sea An inland sea (also known as an epeiric sea or an epicontinental sea) is a continental body of water which is very large in area and is either completely surrounded by dry land (landlocked), or connected to an ocean by a river, strait or " arm of ...

began to pour out its waters through the River Genil and the Infiernos de Loja. The river and its tributaries were carved out, and after the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

climate crisis ''Climate crisis'' is a term that is used to describe global warming and climate change and their effects. This term and the term ''climate emergency'' have been used to emphasize the threat of global warming to Earth's natural environment an ...

, river terraces formed. The River Genil has two well-defined terraces. The deepening of the Depression of Granada at the foot of the Sierra Nevada led to the formation of a flooded area between Santa Fe and

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

. The Quaternary also produced a

diapir A diapir (; , ) is a type of intrusion in which a more mobile and ductilely deformable material is forced into brittle overlying rocks. Depending on the tectonic environment, diapirs can range from idealized mushroom-shaped Rayleigh–Taylor ...

ic uprising of a mass of

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

to the height of the town of

Láchar Láchar is a municipality in the province of Granada, in Spain. The village of Láchar lies in Granada's floodplain (or "''Vega de Granada''", in Spanish) amid poplar forests, arable farmland and olive groves. The surrounding countryside, and part ...

, which made area from Láchar to Granada more easily flooded, and broke the original depression into two units the Depression of Granada and the ''Pasillo'' or Depression of Loja.

References

{{coord, 37, 06, N, 3, 50, W, region:ES_type:landmark_dim:50000, display=title Valleys of Spain Landforms of Andalusia Landforms of the Province of Granada