Geology / Palaeontology

During the Palaeocene (65.5-55.8 million years before today) the island of Crete was part of Aegean mainland. Its current form established through new soil movements and the quaternary earth folding in the Pliocene age (5.3-1.8 million years ago)
These tectonic operations cut off the island from the Aegean continental plate in their unusual, elongated narrow shape. New fractures and shifts of the Earth's crust have created the islands relief facing, the final today's form was last by movements of the fixed earth's crust. The latest strata are deposits from the Quaternary (1.8 million years), where mammal fossils can be found.

Marl-Cone in Potamida/North west Crete, sediment included fossils from the upper Miocene age

Leaflets

017-04/E - Geotope on Crete 043-04/E - Excursion to Omalos-Plateau