The Rocky Coasts of Balearic Islands

Abstract

Balearic Islands are located in the centre of Western Mediterranean and is composed by five major islands (from biggest to smallest): Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera and Archipelago of Cabrera. Mallorca located at the centre of archipelago has an extension of 3,636 km2, Menorca, located at the Northeast, has an extension of 695 km2, Ibiza and Formentera, called Pitiuses Islands and located at the South, has an extension of 572 and 82 km2 respectively. Mallorca is the island which have a higher coastal length with 842 km (including Archipelago of Cabrera), Menorca follows with 433 km, Ibiza has 334 km and Formentera 115 km. These coasts, and specially the rocky shores, are the result of the geological and geomorphological characteristics and modelling processes, as fluvial, karst, bioerosion and mass movements, between others conditioned by maritime climate which have configured the structural units of each island. According to general results for the entire archipelago, the percentage between rocky coasts or coasts formed by cohesive materials and beach coasts or coasts formed by non-cohesive materials is 80–20.