Ta' Ċenċ Cliffs, also known as Sanap Cliffs, is a 20 ha linear strip of

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

ed coastline in

Sannat Sannat ( mt, Ta' Sannat) is an administrative unit of Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Li ...

, on the southern coast of the island of Gozo,

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, in the

Mediterranean Sea 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 and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

. The area consists of

garrigue Garrigue or garigue ( ), also known as phrygana ( el, φρύγανα , n. pl.), is a type of low scrubland ecoregion and plant community in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. It is found on limestone soils in southern ...

and steep and rugged cliffs, which rise from sea level to a height of 120 m. The cliffs are identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support 800–1000 breeding pairs of

Cory's shearwater Cory's shearwater (''Calonectris borealis'') is a large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It breeds colonially of rocky islands in the eastern Atlantic. Outside the breeding season it ranges widely in the Atlantic. It was formerl ...

s and 150–300 pairs of

yelkouan shearwater upright=0.8, Egg of the yelkouan shearwater The yelkouan shearwater, Levantine shearwater or Mediterranean shearwater (''Puffinus yelkouan'') is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It was formerly treated as a subsp ...

s. Archaeological remains have also been found close to the cliffs. These include Borġ l-Imramma (the remains of an

Mġarr phase The Mġarr phase is one of the eleven phases of Maltese prehistory. It is named for the town of Mġarr, in the west of the island, where pottery older than the Ta' Ħaġrat temple complex was found. The Mġarr phase, approximately 3800-3600 B ...

megalithic temple), two

dolmens A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...

dating back to the Tarxien Cemetery phase and a number of cart ruts.

References

Seabird colonies Important Bird Areas of Malta Sannat Cliffs of Malta {{Malta-geo-stub

See also

References