Geoparque Mundial UNESCO
Geoparque Villuercas > Nº09 – Cancho del Reloj
This geosite can be reached via the road that links the villages of Berzocana and Solana de Cabañas (CC-22.4). Then take the forest track that leads to the Santa Lucía gorge and a path on the right takes you to the top of the Sierra del Castillejo.
Observation of the relief: vertically oriented strata of the Armorican Quartzite, the Santa Lucía syncline, the Trujillo peneplain and transverse faults.
Observation of birds of prey: the quartzite cliffs offer birds of prey narrow ledges where they safely build their nests and from which they launch themselves into the void in search of a thermal current that lifts them up: griffon vultures, eagles, Egyptian vultures, kestrels and other birds of prey are counted as inhabitants of these almost inaccessible crests.
Observation of archaeological remains: the geographical circumstances of this mountain range are particular and have favoured the development of human communities since ancient times, as is attested by the abundance of remains of the ancient inhabitants of the area. On the way up to the summit, you can find the remains of the walls of the dwellings of an ancient medieval settlement and at the top of the mountain, an Arab watchtower castle built “in stone”, the Solana castle.
There are also various groups of schematic cave paintings scattered throughout this mountain range, which correspond to a prehistoric period known as the Chalcolithic period. There are some representations of human figures (“ancoriformes”) and also dots and parallel lines (“tectiformes”) with ochre tones, arranged on the smooth surfaces of the west facing quartzite strata.
The so-called “Cancho del Reloj” at Solana de Cabañas is an impressive outcrop of quartzite strata (Armorican Quartzite) with a vertical to inverted orientation, corresponding to a tight anticlinal fold, which is an extension of the Cañamero anticline (Geosite 12) on the southwest flank of the Santa Lucía syncline. This outcrop gives rise to the Sierra del Castillejo, to the southeast of the same locality, a toponym alluding to the fact that on its summit are the ruins of an Arab castle.
The strata of quartzite rocks generate these impressive outcrops due to their greater competence (hardness and resistance to erosion) with respect to other rocks, the shales and sandstones that surround them, also due to the rectilinear orientation and verticality of their layers in a northwest-southeast direction and the duplicity of the Armorican quartzite in the tight anticlinal fold.
Another result of this process of degradation by differential erosion (difference in the amount of erosion due to the different degrees of hardness of the strata) can be seen in the landscape that unfolds towards the south-west, where the Trujillo shale-gravel plain extends, or in the valley that forms the nucleus of the Santa Lucía syncline, also with a predominance of Ordovician shales, quartzites and diamictites.
Stratigraphically, the Armorican Quartzite is composed of ortho-sandstone strata about 350 m thick, which, due to its resistance to erosion, has an excellent exposure and can be followed over long distances, constituting a guide level of great value in the reconstructions of the cartography of the Las Villuercas, Monfragüe and Cañaveral mountain ranges, to mention some of the nearby areas. Its age is Lower Ordovician and its sediments were deposited in coastal marine environments, from littoral with abundant fossilised vertical galleries (Skolithos), to shallow sublittoral, where trilobites leave their trace fossils (Cruziana), so characteristic of these rocks.
