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

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. The river

Genil The Genil River is the main (left) tributary of the river Guadalquivir in Andalusia, Spain. The Roman ''Singilis'', its modern name derives from the Moorish rendering of the Roman name: ''Sinyil, Sannil'', and ''Sinnil''. Route The source of 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 primarily ...

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

comarca A ''comarca'' (, or , or ) 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, ...

Los Montes Los Montes is a Spanish region 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 south, Vega de Granada in ...

on the southern border of the

Cordillera Subbética The Subbaetic or Sub-Baetic System ( es, Sistema Subbético or ''Cordillera Subbética'') is one of the three systems of mountain ranges of the Baetic System in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Highest point high Peña de la Cruz in Sierra Ara ...

; on the north west are the Sierra de Loja and El Hacho; on the southwest the

Sierra Gorda The Sierra Gorda () is an ecological region centered on the northern third of the Mexican state of Querétaro and extending into the neighboring states of Guanajuato, Hidalgo and San Luis Potosí. Within Querétaro, the ecosystem extends from ...

; 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 ( es, Surco Intrabético 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 ...

. 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 (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, 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 tenden ...

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 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 means "less recen ...

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 where 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, t ...

of continental character, receiving

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...

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 s ...

(the first phase of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

); at that time there appears to have been a

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

that caused a period of

rhexistasy The theory of biorhexistasy describes climatic conditions necessary for periods of soil formation (pedogenesis) separated by periods of soil erosion. Proposed by pedologist Henry Erhart in 1951, the theory defines two climatic phases: biostasy and ...

(dryness leading to lack of

ground cover Groundcover or ground cover is any plant that grows over an area of ground. Groundcover provides protection of the topsoil from erosion and drought. In an ecosystem, the ground cover forms the layer of vegetation below the shrub layer known as t ...

) 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 (, ; ar, الْحَمْرَاء, Al-Ḥamrāʾ, , ) is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the ...

or the block formation of the Cono del Río Dúrcal. 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 and is either completely surrounded by dry land or connected to an ocean by a river, strait, or "arm of the sea". An inland se ...

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). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

climate crisis ''Climate crisis'' is a term describing global warming and climate change, and their impacts. The term and the alternative term ''climate emergency'' have been used to describe the threat of global warming to humanity (and their planet), and to u ...

, 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 (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) 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 fo ...

. The Quaternary also produced a

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

ic uprising of a mass of

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate 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, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

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 language, Spanish) amid poplar forests, arable farmland and olive groves. The surrounding cou ...

, 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 Geography of the Province of Granada