The Sierra de Gredos is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

in central Spain that spans the provinces of

Ávila Ávila ( , , ) is a Spanish city located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Ávila. It lies on the right bank of the Adaja river. Located more than 1,130 m a ...

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

, Cáceres,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, and Toledo. It is part of the much larger

Sistema Central The Central System, Spanish language, Spanish and , is one of the main systems of mountain ranges in the Iberian Peninsula. The 2,592 m high Pico Almanzor is its highest summit. The Central System is located just north of the 40th parallel north, ...

of mountain ranges. Its highest point is Pico Almanzor at 2,592 meters and it has been declared a natural park by the

Autonomous Community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

Castile and León Castile and León is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwestern Spain. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, covering 94,222 km2. It is, however, sparsely populated, with a pop ...

. The Sierra de Gredos is one of the most extensive mountain ranges of the Central System; it comprises five river valleys: the Alto Tormes, the Alto Alberche, the Tiétar Oriental, the Tiétar Occidental y la Vera, and the Valle del Ambroz. The first known inhabitants were the

Vettones The Vettones (Greek language, Greek: ''Ouettones'') were an Prehistoric Iberia#Iron Age, Iron Age pre-Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula. Origins Lujan (2007) concludes that some of the names of the Vettones show clearly Hispano-Celtic lan ...

, a pre-Roman Celtic people. The central part of the range encomprises the

Sierra de Gredos Regional Park Sierra de Gredos Regional Park (in spanish language, Spanish "''Parque Regional de la Sierra de Gredos''") is a protected natural area in Spain, covering 86,397 hectares. The estimated population within the socio-economic influence area is 21,182. ...

Geology

The Sierra de Gredos comprises mainly

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

, which is a common type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock which is granular and phaneritic in texture. This rock consists mainly of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into fragile elastic plates. This characteristic is described as ''perfect basal cleavage''. Mica is co ...

, and

feldspar Feldspar ( ; sometimes spelled felspar) is a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagiocl ...

. In some Gredos rocks the feldspar crystals are especially large, attaining a size of several centimeters in some cases. There is also some

granodiorite Granodiorite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar. The term banatite is sometimes used informally for various rocks ranging from gra ...

and outcrops of

metamorphic rocks Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...

. During a large part of the

Paleozoic Era The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma at the start of ...

, from 600 to 350 million years ago, the whole area was covered by the

Tethys Ocean The Tethys Ocean ( ; ), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean during much of the Mesozoic Era and early-mid Cenozoic Era. It was the predecessor to the modern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Eurasia ...

where horizontal layers or strata of sediments accumulated due to the process of erosion in the unflooded regions. These sediments were fractured and folded due to the actions of the

Variscan Orogeny The Variscan orogeny, or Hercynian orogeny, was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Nomenclature The name ''Varis ...

and extensive areas emerged from the sea. At the end of the Paleozoic molten

magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma (sometimes colloquially but incorrectly referred to as ''lava'') is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also ...

rose up which turned into granite as it cooled. Erosion continued for a long time until between 40 and 2 million years ago, when another convulsion, known as the

Alpine Orogeny The Alpine orogeny, sometimes referred to as the Alpide orogeny, is an orogenic phase in the Late Mesozoic and the current Cenozoic which has formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt. Cause The Alpine orogeny was caused by the African c ...

, created the mountains that today comprise the Central System. The tectonic style of the Sierra de Gredos is the so-called Germanic style, i.e. with large upraised fault blocks, known as horst, bounded by

graben In geology, a graben () is a depression (geology), depressed block of the Crust (geology), crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults. Etymology ''Graben'' is a loan word from German language, German, meaning 'ditch' or 't ...

. The Sierra de Gredos is divided into three sectors: the Eastern sector up to the Puerto del Pico fault, the Central sector up to the Puerto de Tornavacas fault, and the Western sector which is the Sierra de Béjar. The range's snowline was measured at 1800-1900 meters in 1916.

Eastern section

Rises in the south near the North Tietar fault. The northern limit of the horst is structured by a system of faults that run to the north-east, such as the Burguillo fault, and also in an east–west direction, like the Navaluenga fault, along which the

Alberche The Alberche is a river in the provinces of Ávila, Madrid and Toledo, central Spain. It begins its course at 1,800 m in Fuente Alberche, San Martín de la Vega del Alberche municipal term, Ávila Province. It forms the natural division betwee ...

river runs. The highest peaks of this sector are the following: * Alto del Mirlo 1.770 m ( Casillas) * La Escusa 1.960 m * Gamonosa 1.993 m ( Casavieja) * Lanchamala 1.999 m ( Piedralaves) * El Torozo 2.025 m * Risco de Miravalles 2.010 m ( Gavilanes) * Risco del Artuñero 2.011 m * Cabezo de Gavilanes 2.190 m ( Gavilanes) Sierra-gredos-cara sur-300110

Lakes

* Laguna Grande de Gredos * Las Cinco Lagunas * Laguna del Barco * Laguna de los Caballeros * Laguna de la Nava * Lagunas del Trampal * Laguna del Duque

Fauna

The main species to be found in the Sierra de Gredos are the following: * The Iberian ibex (''Capra pyrenaica'') * The roe deer (''Capreolus capreolus'') * The red-legged partridge (''Alectoris rufa'') * The

golden eagle The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of pr ...

(''Aquila chrysaetos'') * The Spanish imperial eagle (''Aquila adalberti'') * The

European honey buzzard The European honey buzzard (''Pernis apivorus''), also known as the pern or common pern, is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Taxonomy The European honey buzzard was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in ...

(''Pernis apivorus'') * The

cinereous vulture The cinereous vulture (''Aegypius monachus''), also known as the black vulture, Eurasian black vulture, and monk vulture, is a very large Raptor (bird), raptor in the family Accipitridae distributed through much of temperate Eurasia. With a body ...

(''Aegypius monachus'') * The

griffon vulture The Eurasian griffon vulture (''Gyps fulvus'') is a large Old World vulture in the bird of prey family Accipitridae. It is also known as the griffon vulture, although this term is sometimes used for the genus as a whole. It is not to be confuse ...

(''Gyps fulvus'') * The black stork ''(Ciconia negra)''

Endemic species

* The

common toad The common toad, European toad, or in Anglophone parts of Europe, simply the toad (''Bufo bufo'', from Latin ''bufo'' "toad"), is a toad found throughout most of Europe (with the exception of Ireland, Iceland, parts of Scandinavia, and some List ...

of Gredos (''Bufo bufo gredosicola'') * The

fire salamander The fire salamander (''Salamandra salamandra'') is a common species of salamander found in Europe. It is black with yellow spots or stripes to a varying degree; some specimens can be nearly completely black while on others the yellow is dominant ...

of Almanzor (''Salamandra salamandra almanzoris'') * The European snow vole of Avila (''Microtus nivalis abulensis'') * The western Spanish ibex (''Capra pyrenaica victoriae'') * The lagartija carpetana ('' Iberolacerta cyreni''), a species of lizard * The marbled teal (''Marmaronetta angustirostris'') * The Iberian barbel ''(Luciobarbus comizo)''

Flora

The variety of plant life in the Sierra de Gredos is closely related to the altitude at which it is found. In ascending order, the following species of trees can be found: holm oak (or holly oak),

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Description ...

alder Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ex ...

rowan The rowans ( or ) or mountain-ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus ''Sorbus'' of the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the Himalaya ...

(or mountain ash),

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species in the Populus sect. Populus, of the ''Populus'' (poplar) genus. Species These species are called aspens: * ''Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China, south of ''P. tremula'') * ''Populus da ...

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

, Pyrenean oak, replaced in some areas by

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

. At higher altitudes there are mostly bushes of the genus '' Cytisus'' (brooms),

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

and several species of camomile. Four different layers of vegetation have been identified:. * the base layer, or holm oak layer, 300–550 m * the Pyrenean oak layer, 550–1800 m * the broom layer, 1800–2300 m * and the open field layer at the peaks, 2300–2600 m

Tourism

Tourists visit the Sierra de Gredos to hike and stargaze.

References

{{Authority control Gredos