Petrota and its Stones

Highslide JS
Fig. 1: The main valley in the northern part of the Petrota area.

figure 1

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Fig. 2: An alluviated valley floor (110 m asl) with cereal fields, center, framed by pine forest, foreground, and oak maquis on the hills beyond.

figure 2

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Fig. 3: The Kremastos ravine, west-central part of the Petrota graben.

figure 3

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Fig. 3 detail: Rhyolite cliffs over the Kremastos ravine. The ravine itself cuts through beds of tuff. Vegetation is (grazed) oak maquis.

figure 3 detail

Landscape

The landscape is dominated by ranges of hills, with crests at 150-350 m above sea level. Alluvium accumulates in some valley bottoms, but, for the most part, the products of erosion are carried outside the graben, to a plain to the North and the sea in the South. Channels are often encased in gullies and steep-sided ravines.

Arable land is limited along narrow valley floors and on small plateaux. Areas under cultivation are separated by much wider tracts of forest, maquis or open land, and these are devoted to sheep and goat grazing. Oaks (both deciduous and evergreen) are the dominant species in the forest and the maquis, while communities of pines grow in some of the wetter areas (Figures 2 and 3). The area is sparsely populated today, as it appears to have been for the best part of the historical period.


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