NATURE MONUMENT DEBELI RTIC

Visitors from Setember 1999:

The Debeli rtic peninsula cuts into the Gulf of Trieste in a northwesterly direction, just like as all other capes in the Slovene part of the Adriatic coast. Its wide ridge rises easterly into the slopes of Jurjev hrib ( 107 m) and at the root of the peninsula reaches the height of some 65 m a.s.l. in the west, a huge cliff rises above the sea and a narrow terrace along it. Abrasion, mouldering of the flysch walls and washing away of the weather-beaten rock are the basic geomorphological processes which have given the cliff its shape, prevented it from becoming overgrown with vegetation and thus kept it "alive". The result of these processes is a steady shifting of the cliff from the sea at the average speed of 1 to 2 cm a year.
The protected area covers about 800 m of the coast in the extreme western part of the cape and encloses the edge of the cliff, the walls, the abraded terrace and some 200 m wide strip of the coastal sea. The walls of the cliff, which is from 12 to 21 m high, are unequally exposed and have very diverse geomorphological and vegetational outer form. The cliff is most active in the extreme and therefore most exposed part of the cape - the punta - which is the result of the daily activities of the sea and the resulting ahrasion processes. Due to their geological structure, the southwestern walls of the cliff are bare here and there. In this part of the cliff, a few metres thick stratum of marl, subjected to intensive mouldering, is clearly seen between the two layers of sandstone. A similar spatially limited bareness of flysch walls can be also seen on the northern and northwestern sides of the peninsula, where some metres long and deep horizontal rock shelter has been formed due to the workings of the sea heside vertically hroken flysch layers. The bank of the cliff is at places, where the inclination allows so, overgrown ith thermophilous plants, particularly Spartium junceum and Coronilla emeroides.
The upper edge of the cliff is overgrown with a thick layer of bushes and trees. Among the latter there predominate Pinnus halepensis and Pinus nigra. Also common are Quercus pubescens, Ostrya carpinifolia, Faxinus ornus and Robinia pseudacacia. The most common among the bushes are Rubus sp., Rubia peregrina and Coronilla emeroides. From the described pattern of plants stands out the edge of the cliff in the extreme northeastern part of the protected area, where more or less only oak is found as far as trees are concerned. This stand is indeed quite small, for it encloses only about fifty trees which, however, are very large and old.
The structure of the terrace below the cliff is mainly uniform. It is narrow and covered by small blocks which have broken off the sandstone walls. From the above mentioned structure stands out only the northern side of the peninsula, where the terrace consists solely of sea boulders. Under the surface of the sea, however, one can follow some extremely attractive layers of the underwater ridge, gradually thinning towards the west and at the same time indicating the direction of die cape's retreat due to the activities of the sea. The inclination of the floor is within the first hundred metres from the coast very small due to the position of the above mentioned flysch layers, bur then increases slightly. Such shallowness is the reason why the sea floor is well lit and richly overgrown with algae. which are in sandy parts of the floor accompanied by the Slander sea-grass (Cymodocea nodosa). Among the most noticeable represen-tatives of the very diverse underwater animal world there are: the Gold-sponge (Verongia aerophoba), the Snake-locks anemone (Anemonia sulcata). the Common oyster (Ostrea edulis), the Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis), the Fan mussel (Pinna nobilis), the Murex (Murex truncatus), the Needle shell (Cerithium vulgata), the Brown sea-urchin (Paracentrotus lividus), the Sea cucumber (Holothuria sp.) and the Spider crab (Maia verrucosa).

Text by Robert Turk

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Updated 21^st Setember 1999 by :