Volirakis Stelios
Astron Hotel
Tel/Fax 0030 28420 26229/24939
Ierapetra, Creta, Greece
contact at chrisi-island.gr

THE ROCKS AND THE LAND

Red peridotites at the north side

The basic rocks of Chrissi (diavases, peridotites and gabbri) were formed by the lava's solidification, which flew from an underwater volcano million years ago. In many places on the north coast there are red peridotites. There are sea sediments (mainly hornstones, agglomerates and sandstones) from the volcanic rocks. Going for a walk in the island's region the visitor will be impressed by the colours of the rocks called hornstones (brown-red, green-grey, black). The biggest part of Chrissi's surface is covered by sand. At the flat parts the ground is relatively massive and it is composed of reddish sand's fine grains and (the ground) in a high percentage is covered by mossplants and lichens. At the parts where there are sandythines, the sand is yellowish and (made) of coarse sand's grains. It (the sand) is held mostly from the cedars' wide root system as well as their leafage which touches the ground.

All the fossils found in the island come from the sea. They were put on the volcanic rock (on the diavases ) before 350.000 up to 70.000 years, when Chrissi was still sunk inside the water. The areas where the fossils exist are the north, the north-east,, the south and the south-east parts of the island on an elevation up to 6 metres over the sea. Totally there have been found fossils of 49 species, from which 13 are two-doors, 39(are) gasteropoda (shells and limpets),1 (is) skafopodus , 1(is) coral and 1(is) sea-urchin. At least 12 of the above species live till today in the marine area around Chrissi. These (species) and furthermore almost 50 species of gasteropoda and two-doors exist in large populations up to 50 metres in depth, so that's why the north coasts of Chrissi are full of shells. Especially at the east side of the north coast the shells' number is large composing one of the island's particular features.