Patrimonio geológico y minero y usos tradicionales de la geodiversidad. Las canteras romanas de travertinos del Cerro de la Almagra (Baños de Mula, Murcia)

Laburpena

Baños de Mula is situated in a semiarid landscape of badlands and, in spite of what could be believed, is a place of high beauty and of important touristic, educational and scientific interest due to the extraordinary symbiosis between historical and geological heritage. Quaternary sedimentary processes in the Cenozoic basin of Mula-Fortuna have originated two different formations of travertines, one of them is a red coloured formation from Pleistocene and the other is a brown coloured one from Holocene. The red formation of travertines, whose origin is fluvial and thermal, makes some hills such as Cerro de la Almagra, and was exploited by Romans mainly during 1st and 2nd century A.D. being used mostly in Carthago Nova. This exploitation went on related to the building of Mula city and other surrounding villages as Pliego, Cehegin and Lorca until the seventies of the 20th century. To this important mining and geological heritage, the thermal character of Baños de Mula with its hot spring must be added. Besides, in this Miocene marls badlands scenery, table stones with educational interest can be found, as well as humid areas in Mula river and in wadis as Rambla Perea, with a rich biodiversity and geodiversity, where paleontological deposits of echinoderms and lamellibranchia are abundant. In addition, this important geological heritage is completed with volcanic rocks of worldwide interest, called fortunitas, that appear in the volcanic site in Puebla de Mula. Given all these reasons, we recommend the conservation, study and enhancement of the geological and historical heritage of this region, as economical and cultural profit would be obtained by the inhabitants of this unique area in Región de Murcia.