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Haţeg Country UNESCO Global Geopark
“Large biodiversity and preserved rural life”
Celebrating Earth Heritage
The Haţeg UNESCO Global Geopark is located in the central part of Romania, in Southern Transylvania near the main routes to Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria. The relief has an amphitheater shape with a central piedmont plain, with terraces and meadows surrounded by the picturesque mountain chains of: Retezat, Sureamu, Tarcu, Poiana Rusca.
Its vegetation ranges from alpine shrubs and grasslands, spruce fir, beech forests to sessile oak forest some of them already turned into fields and grasslands. Animal fauna is very divers, comprising among other hundreds of species bears, wolfs, lynxs, deers, marmots, and birds.
The UNESCO Global Geopark area represents a tectonic basin developed as response to collision of tectonic plates at the end of the Cretaceous, followed by tectonic subsidence during the closure of the North Tethys Realm. Jurassic to Pleistocene sedimentary rocks cover the basement of Precambrian – Paleozoic metamorphic and magmatic rocks. Paleogeography reveals Haţeg area was part of an archipelago of islands during Late Cretaceous. Quaternary glacier features, old quarries and a closed copper mine exploitation are also part of the geological heritage.
The region is world famous for its dwarf dinosaurs, also known as the “dwarf dinosaurs of Transylvania”, from the end of Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. The Geopark celebrates this special heritage. More than ten dinosaur species, both herbivorous and carnivorous, have been found in fossil fluvial and lake deposits. Of particular interest, dinosaur eggs and hatch-lings were also discovered in the same deposits. Other associated fossils within the same deposits, like flying reptiles, birds, mammals, lizards, snakes, frogs, crocodiles and turtles offer a bigger picture about dinosaur’s world and their aftermaths. Most spectacular is a huge pterosaur, or flying reptile, that was named Hatzegopteryx after the region and the town. This enormous creature, perhaps the largest flying animals ever, had a 12-meter wing-span. Also well documented at the Geopark are the volcanic rocks-tuffs, lavas and craters that mark eruptions that took place during the age of the dinosaurs.
Characteristics
Designation date
2015
Country(ies)
Transnational
No
Area (ha)
112,400
Population
35,436
Density
31
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