Tickled Squirrel April 2015 | Page 17

types of sediments were accumulated. This continued into the Cretaceous (66145 million years ago) where different rocks continued accumulating in the different parts of the basin. At the end of the Cretaceous a huge meteorite impact on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico occurred which caused a mass extinction. Because the Alicante region was quite close to the Yucatan in the late Cretaceous a lot of the dust from the impact accumulated in the basin forming a 2mm thick dark layer, which can be seen in Agost, and which is an international reference for the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Tertiary (66 million years ago). Triassic rocks near Jijona So this basin, which is pulling itself open, creating different water depths and underwater topography which then causes the formation of different types of sedimentary rocks, suddenly changes its behavior and starts closing. The African Plate to the south starts pushing