The beach at BalealBaleal, today a small piece of rock attached to mainland Portugal by an isthmus,
The beach at BalealBaleal, today a small piece of rock attached to mainland Portugal by an isthmus, takes its name from Baleia, the Portuguese word for whale. Centuries ago, this location was a site where hunted whales were brought for butchering. Today it is one of Portugal’s surfing hotspots as the combination of ocean currents and geologic features funnels waves perfectly into the coast.These tilted rocks line beach throughout this area. They are Jurassic-aged limestones, formed along the coastline of Europe as the Atlantic Ocean was opening. They represent a variety of facies, from deep-water shales to carbonate layers that avalanched downward from higher levels to near-shore, beach-like facies containing ooids. A variety of fossil shells and trace fossils are found throughout the sequence as well.-JBBImage credit: Tiago Jesushttps://flic.kr/p/wUneLTReferences:http://bit.ly/1JjFvHThttp://gailatlarge.com/blog/2014/03/21/24112http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/indexbaleal.htm -- source link
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