The Zakros Mountains are 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 ...

Lasithi Lasithi () is the easternmost regional unit on the island of Crete, to the east of Heraklion. Its capital is Agios Nikolaos, the other major towns being Ierapetra and Sitia. The mountains include the Dikti in the west and the Thrypti in the ...

in eastern

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It trends to the northeast from Diaskari Beach in the southwest in the direction of Toplou Monastery near

Cape Sidero Cape Sideros or Cape Sidero () is a cape at the eastern end of the island of Crete, Greece. Anciently it was known as Samonium or Samonion (), Sammonium or Sammonion (), Salmonium or Salmonion (Σαλμώνιον) and Salmone (Σαλμώνη). T ...

. This range are considered to be the east side of the

Sitia mountains The Sitia or Siteia Mountains, also known as the Sitiaka Range, are a group of four mountain ranges extending SW-NE in Lasithi in eastern Crete, Greece. Stretching from the southern coast to the plain of the city of Sitia on the northern coast, t ...

(Σητειακά βουνά), divided from the west side by the Rema Pentelis ("Pentelis river"), a stream with its valley that flows S-N across most of Crete at that point, entering the Bay of Sitia just east of Sitia. On the west side of the valley are three ranges more or less in a SW-NE line: the

Thrypti Thrypti () is a mountain range in Lasithi in eastern Crete, Greece. It trends to the northeast from Ierapetra in the southwest in the direction of Sitia. However, it only goes half-way in that direction. The rest of the distance is completed by t ...

mountains, the Ornon Mountains, and the Western Siteia Foothills. The four ranges together are considered the Sitia mountains The 1975 creation of Sitia

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Global Geopark placed much of the Sitia range in the park. It is the major range there, but not the only one. The coastal hill range (east coast) also is in it, so the park comprises all of Crete east of the Mochlos-Livari line.

Geography

The mountains are a

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

, seen from outside the massif as a wall of mountains. On top the massif are the montane slopes and plateaus of low enough inclination to support pastures, some agriculture or dendriculture, and villages. It is too dry at those altitudes for much greenery; a bare rocky slope is the norm. At lower altitudes is a maquis: shrubs, grass, scattered trees. The canyons, or gorges, are cut deeply into the edges of the massif by runoff from above, a process facilitated by the softness and solubility of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

. Caves and deep cuts abound. The massif can be roughly defined by the direction of the ravines coming off of it. On the west side they trend E-W into the Pentelis River Valley. To the north the ravines drain into the Sea of Crete, such as the Toplou Monastery Gorge. To the east the ravines trend W-E intersecting a valley. To the south the ravines trend N-S into th Sea of Libya.

Notes

Citations

External links

{{commonscat-inline Mountains of Crete Mountain ranges of Greece Landforms of Lasithi