Potami Beach, Karpathos Island, Greece

Karpathos, the second largest of the Dodecanese Islands, is located between Rhodes and Crete in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Turkey. “Dodecanese” refers to twelve islands, but there are more.

The island is built of layers upon layers of sedimentary rocks: marls, sandstones, limestones and conglomerates. These formed when rapidly moving underwater landslides of mud and sand laden water flowed down a slope. Called turbidites, these layered deposits, reflect grain size and the depositional environment. Fine-grained mud compacted into marl, sands into sandstone. These rock layers form the bluffs, sea cliffs and rocks found along the coastline; as they erode, they contribute sediment to the beach. Seen here are grains of reddish sandstone, tan colored limestone, blue/gray marl, plus grains of feldspar and igneous and metamorphic rocks which eroded from conglomerates.

The island was first inhabited in Neolithic times. It has since been conquered, inhabited, plundered and invaded by many civilizations. In 1948, Karpathos Island became part of Greece.