The Binimel·là-Pregonda area is probably the site of most geological interest in Menorca. It is constituted of a geological series with a great variability of rocks, unique in the Balearic archipelago, which has been studied by numerous scientists since the late nineteenth century. This extraordinary variability of rocks (up to 13 different types of rocks have been identified in this area), some of them very rare, together with the presence of impressive folds as a result of the intense orogenic movements that affected them, allow us to create a trail that is attractive to the general public due to its spectacular nature and with numerous possibilities centring on the processes of formation and deformation of the rocks.
Like most of the Palaeozoic lands we find in Menorca, the rocks at Binimel·là are attributed to the Carboniferous and were sedimented in the sea. However, there is some doubt about their age as many of the fossils that are found in the rocks in the area are of organisms that lived and were fossilised during the Devonian and were later resedimented in the Carboniferous, so undergoing various sedimentation cycles. In other words, after being deposited in the Devonian, they were involved in a new process of transport that finally sedimented them again in the Carboniferous in a different place from the original one.
Consequently, the geological series at Binimel·là is characterised by a great lithological variability, of difficult chronological order, where the materials were sedimented in an area probably not far away and were subsequently affected by slippage processes that mixed them up and transported them to the position they occupy now.
We should also highlight that at Binimel·là materials sedimented in the great sea depths alternate with others deposited in shallow seas. This strange succession of materials has been explained by some scientists as the result of slippages of materials from the shallow areas to the great depths. In other words, the materials that slip from beside the marine shelf (the relatively shallow part that is in contact with the continent) to the great depths, and that are left alternated between materials from the great sea depths. As you will see at the first stopping point, at Binimel·là these rocks from the Palaeozoic era are covered discordantly by fossil dunes from the latest of the geological periods, the Quaternary.
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The Binimel·là-Pregonda area is probably the site of most geological interest in Menorca. It is constituted of a geological series with a great variability of rocks, unique in the Balearic archipelago, which has been studied by numerous scientists since the late nineteenth century. This extraordinary variability of rocks (up to 13 different types of rocks have been identified in this area), some of them very rare, together with the presence of impressive folds as a result of the intense orogenic movements that affected them, allow us to create a trail that is attractive to the general public due to its spectacular nature and with numerous possibilities centring on the processes of formation and deformation of the rocks.
