Periglacial geomorphology of El Miro area, Cantabrian Mountains, NW Spain

The Cantabrian Mountains show a great variety of glacial erosional forms related to a Pleistocene Alpine glaciation with valley glaciers and small ice fields. Analysis of a geomorphological map at 1 : 5,000 scale indicates that, during and after deglaciation, permafrost and periglacial processes affected to a great extent the highest parts of the deglaciated areas. Rock glaciers, felsenmeer, giant sorted stone stripes, protalus, boulder lobes, stone-banked lobes, solifluction forms and talus deposits, formed by glacially derived material or by cryosediment, are frequent in zones with siliciclastic bedrock. Most of them are fossil features. At present, meteorological data indicate important cryogenic activity above 2,000 in approximately. A relation between some boulder deposits, located on higher part of slopes and opposite to glacier cirques, and cryoweathering of quartzites highly fractured by postglacial readjustments is proposed. Developed at different altitudes and on slopes with different orientations, fossil, inactive and active periglacial features provide evidence for more than one cryomere.