36. Cavo Sidero Platy Marble
The Plakoures position is the only place within the Park where the platy marbles of the “Platy Limestone”, i.e. the lowest tectonic geological unit of Crete, can be found. The rocks are impressive both for their geometric structure and for the number of silicate intercalations and fossils (sponges) that contain.
37. Plattenkalk
38. Megali Kefala Schists
The amazing beach of Megali Kefala is quite a distance to the south of Vai and the only way to access it is through the hiking trail (geotrail 14). The beach’s cliffs contain multicolored metamorphosed Phyllite-Quartzite unit rocks, which create a unique seaside scenery.
39. Adravastoi Purple Phyllites
A very characteristic rock with an impressive dark red, even purple color, are the red metapelites (phyllites) which belong to the Phyllite-Quartzite unit. They appear at many points throughout the park, but their most characteristic appearanceis on the road from Karydi to Adravasti.
40. Maridati Multicolored Metamorphics
Maridati beach is to the north of Kouremenos gulf and has been known for years for its unique multicolored rock formations. They are multicolored shale and other metamorphosed rocks of the Phyllite-Quartzite unit.
41. Tripolitsa Flysch
Just outside Chametoulo village, on the cliffs of the Ziros – Xerokambos road, the Tripolitsa unit flysch appears. The flysch includes shales and metasandstones with a characteristic color ranging from light green to grayish yellow. In this particular position one can also observe limestone of the upper tectonic unit of Magassa, which are obducted on the flysch.
42. Argilos Beach Clay
South of Xerokambos is the renowned beach of Argilos, where the Pliocene marl make their appearance. This marl has two unique characteristics: they contain a high percentage of clay and they are very fragmented. Thus, they can easily be broken off by hand and used by bathers to apply natural clay to their body!
43. Kalavros Beds
At the broader area of Kalavros village, one may see the characteristic upper rock units of the huge Plattenkalk limestone series of Crete. These rocks include carbonate phyllites, phyllites and marbles, which comprise the metaphlysch of the unit (age oligocene, 30 million years before today). In some positions these rocks also have fossiled footprints from sea organizations of that age. They actually are a successive transmission from the lower typical platty marbles of the Plattenkalk series and they are covered my one fault zone from the upper unit of Phyllites-Quartzites. On Crete, this metaflysch took its name from the village of Kalavros where it was recognized for the first time.
44. Chamezi Variscan Metamorphics
The Variscan (or Hercynian) Rocks of Sitia include very highly metamorphosed rocks, such as amphibolites, mica schists, gneisses and metaclastics, whose metamorphic age has been determined to be 300 million years before present (Upper Carboniferous), the time when the Variscan (or Hercynian) cycle of orogenesis was occuring (long before the Alpine). The result of this intense metamorphosis (in high temperature conditions) is the creation of special minerals such as garnets, kyanite, staurolite and others. This is one of the few places in Greece where we have pre-alpine rocks with pre-alpine metamorphosis. They probably form part of the pre-Alpine basement, upon which the rocks of the Tripoli section were created.
45. Violet Schists
In the area of Mochlos and more characteristically in the small harbor located west of the coastal settlement, the Violet Schists are observed, which belong to the unit of Phyllites – Quartzites s.s. (in the narrow sense). These are very old rocks, formed 270 – 260 million years ago (Lower – Middle Permian), consisting of a series of highly metamorphosed multi-colored siltstones and shales with striking purple, red, green and/or brown color, with small layers of pelagic limestones in the upper layers.
46. Triassic Evaporite
47. Messinian Evaporite
