The basin of Guadix-Baza, a semi-desert region in the north of the province of Granada, harbored as diverse evidence point, a lake with a sheet of water that was standing partially fed by hot springs around 36 º (degrees) C.
Ie the Hoya of Baza, a depression in Granada, that is in the fields of the village of Orce, it was a kind of natural spa, during the Pleistocene.
This follows from a work, led by the University of Málaga, beside the Catalan Institute of Human Paleontology and Social Evolution (IPHES) –3 of the Authors are: Jose Manuel García, Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro and Paul Palmvist--, in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, collecting evidence geochemical, mineralogical and stratigraphic about the presence of hot springs, as reported by IPHES in a note.
Hydrotherapy is linked to the evolution of the basin fill, which was produced by the erosion of the surrounding mountains. This development was conditioned, according to IPHES, by the existence of a high seismicity, manifested by the presence of abundant active faults.
The finding of these abnormalities linked to hydrothermal phenomena can explain the existence of a lake, that held a sheet of permanent water, throughout year, at the time that the deposit “Venta Micena” was formed, about 1.5 million years ago.
The key lies in the isotopic values, recovered in the fossil collagen of wildlife in Venta Micena, cause of they indicate that, a million and a half years, rainfall in the basin of Baza, around 800 milliliters, were well above the current.
This increased water intake, added to the hot springs, whose temperatures upwelling are around 36 ° C, would result in the hydrological stability of the lake, necessary for the existence, in their environment, of the fauna, marking a subtropical character.
This scene sets up what is known as a hotspot (punto caliente) of high biological productivity, similar to that found in the chain of lakes in East Africa, the cradle of humanity.
Today, the vestiges of this thermal activity stay, in spas of Alicún de las Torres or Zújar, or less warm water springs of Fuencaliente, in Orce and Huesca, between others.
So, the rain that falls today represent the region just 350 millimeters per year, so that would be clearly insufficient to recharge the aquifer, when it was an endorheic basin. This means that the lake would have drained seasonally, as it happens today in the Laguna de Fuente de Piedra, current smaller scale analog of the Lake of Baza.
In addition, the low winter temperatures would have assumed that their surface water were frozen, which would preclude the existence of certain elements of fauna, as the giant Pleistocene hippopotamus, a well documented specie, in paleontological sets of the region.
"Now yhen, this megaherbívoro, whose body mass was double than the current specie, had a greater dependence on liquid medium, because it was only feeded with aquatic vegetation", the investigator of the IPHES, Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro, has told.
At several sites in the basin, located in the vicinity of the village of Orce, like Barranco León, Fuente Nueva-3 and Venta Micena, systematic excavations currently are taking place, they sponsored by the Regional Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía.
They have recovered the oldest fossil evidence of human presence, in Western Europe, dated at 1.4 million years, accurately documenting the ecological and paleoenvironmental setting of large mammal communities, in which these remote villagers were inserted, developed in the brackish environment large lake.
Well, I hope that you have liked this news and you can come to Spain, in order to visit that such interesting place.
Till soon, kind regards,
Luis.
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