Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, Central Pyrenees

2014; Springer Nature (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-94-017-8628-7_14

2213-2104

José M. García‐Ruiz, Blas L. Valero‐Garcés, Santiago Beguerı́a, Juan Ignacio López‐Moreno, C. Martí‐Bono, Pilar Serrano-Muela, Yasmina Sanjuán,

Karst Systems and Hydrogeology

The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park was created in 1918 and enlarged in 1982 to highlight and protect spectacular high mountain relief dominated by limestone. Alpine tectonics resulted in the piling-up of south-verging thrust sheets leading to the thick sedimentary successions exposed in impressive vertical cliffs. The presence of massive limestones has favoured the development of deep canyons and karst landforms, including karren, dolines, and caves with large shafts. Quaternary glaciations contributed to increase the geomorphic diversity, forming cirques and stunning U-shaped valleys. Small glaciers from the Little Ice Age still remain on the north-facing slopes of the Monte Perdido. Periglacial processes in the most elevated areas of the National Park, as well as erosion in thick soils developed on marly limestone have produced unique geomorphological features.