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The Cerro Pelado, Layna

Arcos de Jalón, Tierra de Medinaceli, Soria

1 Villages · 7 Monuments · 4 Nature · 1 Activities · 3 Curiosities · 3 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

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The Cerro Pelado, Layna

Curiosity · Arcos de Jalón, Tierra de Medinaceli, Soria

Image of Arcos de Jalón, not of the place itself.

The Cerro Pelado palaeontological site, or Layna site, discovered in 1964, is a Pliocene deposit of karstic origin located in the village of Layna, in the municipality of Arcos de Jalón (Soria), classified as a protected natural area of Castile and León. It formed through the infilling of a karstic cavity over the cargneule rock at the base of the Lower Jurassic, made up of breccias of dolomitic pebbles, red clays and bone breccias with fossil remains. Its deposits have yielded vertebrate fossils documenting Pliocene fauna: amphibians, reptiles such as varanids and vipers, birds such as the Balearic barn owl, and mammals ranging from rodents and lagomorphs to carnivores such as hyenas, a primitive bear and a felid related to the caracal.

Photo: Luis Rogelio HM (CC BY-SA 2.0)

What to see and do in Arcos de Jalón