A winter day, somewhere in Navarra

This time I will not say where I've been, because I am going to show you 2 species in danger of extinction, but I think that will be many people with the tracks that I going to give you, who will recognize the place.
If someone  want to visit it, I'll be happy to do so.

Nummulites

Lets begin with the composition of the rocks of the place; as you will see, they are full of fossils of some 55 million years ago and  marine origin. They are called Nummulites, and is a composite Latin word (nummus / coins, litos / stone). If one sees flat, they look like coins with concentric circles, but if it turns out that the bug (not an animal but a unicellular be called protist) was on side when fossilized, or broke, then they are more elliptical.
They are foraminifera,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foraminifera a kind of macroplacton, swimming in the waters of the prehistoric sea that disappeared when the Iberian peninsula was built against the European continent.
Among its concentric circles, sprouted a number of something similar to a little hairs with which they fed.
The main of the limestone of  the  Pamplona/Iruña basin, looking to the south, are made with skeletons of trillions of these beings (Alaitz and Sarbil ranges, pilatos balcony, above Urederra fountainhead, ..)
I have found this very good link about these things:(in spanish)

http://www.geoparquepirineos.com/contenidos.php?niv=&cla=_2OA1CD0KM&cla2=_2OB01HU8N&cla3=_3MD0KXM4T&tip=3&idi=1

The second clue corresponds to the river that flow in this area. Its waters have been carving in the rock several circular holes called potholes. Sometimes,  a stone  is trapped by the current in an imperfection of the rock, as a small hole, and with the water movement this stone begin Smoothing and getting bigger the hole until it can reach several meters in diameter.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmita_de_gigante

Pothole with the dead trout

In this small pothole beside the river which coming rise due to the snowfall of yesterday, a poor troutfound the death. I do not know if the rise would have pushed into the pothole which later it could not get away, or died of old age after a full life, but the truth is that was recently died there. Gills were still red, but the skin was beginning to fade.
I put my hand to hand as size reference.

A few meters we can see a small seam between two limestones  of crystallized calcite. When these rocks were forming, hot water and great pressure fill of lime circulated through a crack, until calcite began to accumulate on the walls of the crack, filling them and sealing like cholesterol in our arteries. This procedure is the same when we found a vein of copper, silver, gold and many other minerals, but in that case, would be other kinds of rocks which would have to look not in sedimentary rocks, but in metamorphic, and almost always attached to quartz.

Calcite crystals 

Latest clues!
It is the Bearded Vulture foraging territory, abundant colonies of griffon vulture, and now in winter, a rare bird jewel, the walcreeper (Tychodroma muralis)!

Bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus)

Griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus)

Wallcreeper (Tychodroma muralis)

This beautiful Wallcreeper was takin benefit of the sun's rays to eat the few bugs that appear in the heat rock or  refuge in the numerous cracks and holes.

So, although it seems that few things to see in winter, actually in all seasons there are many things to see

Dinosaur Footprints from the "Plaza del castillo" of Pamplona ... in Madrid?

Carmen U. Godzillin paleontology blog, sent me a link to his article published in April 2009 entitled "huellas con historia",(footprints with history), which sheds light about the plate that at present is showing in Madrid:


 http://godzillin.blogspot.com.es/2009/04/unas-huellas-con-historia.html

According to local news from the National Museum of environmental science:

http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/79993/1/NievesAldrey2009_periodicoMuseo.pdf

Was in 1876 when  Alfonso de Aretillo y Larrinaga found in the old floor of "plaza del castillo" the plate with the dinosaur footprints,and chose among others, to be  investigated in Madrid. The cityhall of Pamplona in that time finally gave the piece for the museum of Madrid.
So, although the events of "plaza del castillo" were as I told you in the previous article, this piece is not for those events.

Before publishing the news, I had looking in google search engine introducing the words dinosaur, arqueosaurio, Plaza del castillo, Pamplona, .. but  nothing found. As on the short museum  information card dont appeared more details than you saw, and taking into account the history of concealment of the excavations of  "plaza del castillo" from Pamplona, it seemed clear the conclusion ..but no. I was wrong and I apologize because all information that I previously published is contrasted and this is the reason that I usually put all the links that I can about it. If this new had it been what seemed , nor I could have found references online.


Now, the question would be: what happened with the rest of plates with dinosaur traces that speaking in the article, and where they came from.?  Because in Pamplona, there is no middle Triassic. By the time of formation of these plaques, and that in the nineteenth century would not carried  stones for paving a square outside the province.
It seems that the oldest rocks in the area of Pamplona is precisely from this time, located in the valley of Ollo and cendea  of Iza. However, they are not  mostly limestone, but gypsum and ophites, as you can see here in Euskomedia:
http://www.euskomedia.org/PDFAnlt/prehistoria/04/04061096.pdf


La historia de los materiales geológicos que aparecen en las Cuencas, puede remontarse
hasta el Triásico Medio, cuando el territorio queda cubierto por un lago salino, en cuyo
fondo empiezan a depositarse arcillas con algún nivel de caliza, yesos y sales (Keuper). Al final
del Triásico y durante el Jurásico, este lago del Keuper se abre al mar, que tendrá pocas
repercusiones para lo que luego serán las Cuencas Prepirenaicas. Durante este largo periodo
que llega hasta el Cretácico Superior, se van depositando en un fondo marino las calizas
y margas que hoy rodean las Cuencas.

The history of geological materials appearing in  the Basins, can be came from
the Middle Triassic, when the territory is covered by a saline lake, in which
background begin depositing clays  with some level of limestone, gypsum and salts (Keuper). 
At the end  of Triassic period and  during the Jurassic, this lake of Keuper opens to the sea, which will have little implications for what will be the Prepirenaicas Basins. During this long period
that reaches until the Upper Cretaceous, are deposited on a dark background limestones

and marls that  today surrounding  the basins.

So if you encourage  to lookin for the quarry from came this  stones, I would start in this area, but if you find something of interest, Warn  to the forest rangers of Navarre!