Sierra Menera is a long mountain range in the southwestern end of the

Iberian System Iberian refers to Iberia. Most commonly Iberian refers to: *Someone or something originating in the Iberian Peninsula, namely from Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. The term ''Iberian'' is also used to refer to anything pertaining to the fo ...

. Administratively the Sierra Menera belongs to the Sierra de Albarracín, Jiloca and

Comunidad de Teruel Communidad de Teruel is a comarca in Aragon, Spain. Its capital is Teruel, the capital of Teruel Province. Teruel city gives its name to this comarca located in the mountainous Iberian System area. Municipalities Ababuj, Aguatón, Aguilar del A ...

, comarcas of Aragon, as well as to the

Province of Guadalajara Guadalajara () is a province of Spain, belonging to the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. As of 2013 it had a population of 257,723 people. The population of the province has grown in the last 10 years. It is located in the centre of ...

, Castile-La Mancha in its western side. The Castle of Peracense rises atop an escarpment in the southern part of the range. The place known as ''Mirador de la Marajosa'' offers ample views of the surrounding landscape. There are aerogenerators on some of the Sierra Menera's ridges.

Geography

The main range is aligned in a NNW - SSE direction. It is not as high or conspicuous as other mountain ranges of the Iberian System. From the hydrographic point of view the Sierra Menera divides the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

from the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

watershed. The eastern rivulets are tributaries of the

Jiloca River The Jiloca () is a river in Aragón, Spain, a tributary of the river Jalón, and part of the watershed of the Ebro basin. The course of the river runs through the provinces of Teruel and Zaragoza. It has a length of and an average flow rate of ...

, the western of the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to e ...

, and the northern have no exit, ending up in the

Laguna de Gallocanta The Gallocanta Lake ( es, Laguna de Gallocanta) is an endorheic lake in Aragon, Spain. Falling within the boundaries of two provinces, Teruel and Zaragoza, the lake is located just to the south of Gallocanta village, between the Aragonese comarca ...

basin. Sierra Menera's highest point is the 1,601 m high summit known as Monte de San Ginés; another important peak is the 1591 m high Mojón Alto.

History

The Sierra Menera's name derives from the word for

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 Apr ...

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

, for it has rich iron ore deposits that were exploited since ancient Celtiberian, and later also during

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

times, well until the late 20th century. A 200 km long railway line was built by the ''Compañía Minera de Sierra Menera S. A.'' in 1903 in order to bring the iron ore to the harbor of

Sagunto Sagunto ( ca-valencia, Sagunt) is a municipality of Spain, located in the province of Valencia, Valencian Community. It belongs to the modern fertile ''comarca'' of Camp de Morvedre. It is located c. 30 km north of the city of Valencia, cl ...

. This was the longest private company-owned railway line in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. A blast furnace facility also belonging to the company was also located in Sagunto, where a pelletizing plant and a long jetty were built in the 1970s. The Sierra Menera range has been much scarred by environmentally unsound mining practices across the centuries. There are many tons of untreated debris and slag scattered across the range, contaminating the soil and the

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated ...

. Since mid 20th century, large-scale

open-pit mining Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mini ...

compounded matters, causing severe

land degradation Land degradation is a process in which the value of the biophysical environment is affected by a combination of human-induced processes acting upon the land. It is viewed as any change or disturbance to the land perceived to be deleterious o ...

in vast mountain areas. The Sagunto ore-processing facilities, Altos Hornos del Mediterráneo S.A., ceased their activity in 1984 and the Sierra Menera mining company went bankrupt in 1987, following which the mines and their subsidiary facilities were closed. Massive unemployment hit the mining town of Ojos Negros after mining activity in the nearby mountains ceased. As a consequence its population went from 3000 in the 20th century to 560 in 2010. At the time of the closure of the mines there was no official regulation forcing the mining company to repair the environmental damage caused by its activity. The Spanish Mining Law relevant at the time didn't include a provision regarding environmental impact of mining activity when it was promulgated in 1973.Ley de Minas de 21 de Julio de 1973

References

External links

Rama aragonesa del Sistema Ibérico

Laguna de Almohaja

Sagunto

Vía Verde de Ojos Negros
{{Authority control Mining in Spain Menera Menera Menera Open-pit mines Surface mines in Spain

Geography

History

See also

References

External links