Tourist in My Own Country

A Visit to the Pinnacles

Geological curiosities of Northern Cyprus

St Hilarion Mountain at sunset. The two small pointed mountains on the right are pinnacles that have separated from the larger mountain (photo by author)

The island of Cyprus has a fascinating geological history. While the Troodos Mountains in the south were formed by volcanic action, the Kyrenia Range in the north was caused by tectonic uplift. Although Cyprus doesn’t experience much seismic activity at the present time, it lies on the nexus of the Eurasian and African tectonic plates.

Before there was a Cyprus, there were shallow sea beds. For millennia, layers of sediment were laid down and compacted, some layers denser than others. When the tectonic plates met, the African plate was subducted, that is, it pushed under the Eurasian plate, causing the land mass that was once horizontal sea bed to be pushed vertically.

Since the layers were not equally compressed, that meant that some layers that were now vertical were more prone to erosion than others. Softer sandstone and limestone crumbled away, while the harder limestones and marble held their place.

One of the curious results of this erosion process is the formation of pinnacles of white limestone. In the centuries after being uplifted, the softer rock layers slowly eroded , leaving a gap, almost like a vertical slice along the side of a mountain. Over time the gap widened, and then a remarkable process began. The solid rock, freed from the mountain began to slide down towards the valley below while staying vertical, much like a snowboarder sliding down the snow on a mountainside. These are hard monolithic rocks that separated from mountains are still in the process of separating and moving away. Not all of the pinnacles stay upright, and there are plenty of boulders and debris to attest to that. But the ones that remain upright are impressive sights.

The Kyrenia range above the village of Karmi. The vertical splits in the mountains are caused by the erosion of softer rock that will eventually fracture and separate from the main mountain (Photo by author)

Keep in mind that there have never been glaciers here. This part of the world never experienced an ice age. All the geology in the north of the island has been formed by tectonic action.

A small group of us have formed an amateur geology group. We get together and visit various geological sites using William Dreghorn’s books as our guide.

In the early 1970’s Dreghorn was commissioned with doing a complete geological survey of Northern Cyprus. As a result, he wrote reports, academic books, and also popular books. His 1979 book, Landscapes in Northern Cyprus is a handbook of the geology and landforms written for the layman. We use this book as both a guide, and a wishbook for places we’d like to visit.

Dreghorn’s instructions took us west of St Hilarion, south of Karmi, and up into the Kyrenia Range. While pinnacles are visible from a distance, especially the two that descend from the west side of St Hilarion, here we could come closer and see how huge they were.

Pinnacles marching down the mountainside (Photo by the author)

We also realised that given the progression of geologic time, we were seeing the same landscape that people here saw thousands of years ago. What did they make of these immense towers of solid rock? Any of these stones dwarf the great trilithons of Stonehenge. They look almost like spears thrust up from the earth rather than a portion of a mountain that has calved off like a piece of an iceberg. The pinnacles have been compared to soldiers and sentinels, watching over the valley below.

In time, perhaps some will make it to the sea, but not within any of our lifetimes. The sentinels will watch over our villages for generations to come.

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