Hercules is said to have smashed a single mountain apart to let the ocean through.
Jews' Gate / Pillars of Hercules
Stop 1 of 4 · 180 m · The southern tip
Listen to this stop
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Look straight out ahead of you. Five million years ago, none of that water existed. The whole Mediterranean dried out. It became a salt desert hundreds of metres below the level of the Atlantic, out past the headland to your right. Then, geologically speaking, overnight: the ocean broke through the gap you're standing above, and one modelling study puts up to ninety percent of the refill pouring through in under two years. The biggest flood in the planet's history, right where you're standing, and it happened twice as fast as the fall of Rome takes to say. This gate takes its name from a much older story about that same gap. The Greeks called the rock behind you and the headland across the water the Pillars of Hercules: the edge of the known world, the place a hero supposedly punched a mountain apart to let the ocean through. Nobody agrees which peak on the African side he meant. That argument is older than the gate itself, and nobody has settled it yet.
During the Messinian Salinity Crisis (5.96–5.33 million years ago) the Mediterranean dried into a salt desert. It refilled through the Strait in the Zanclean flood; a 2009 modelling study put as much as 90% of that refill through in under two years. It is broadly accepted as the largest flood in Earth's history, though the exact speed is still debated among geologists.
The Pillars of Hercules marked the edge of the classical world: Calpe (this rock) on one side, and either Jebel Musa or Monte Hacho on the other. Which of those two it was is genuinely disputed among historians. Hercules supposedly smashed a single mountain apart to open the Strait; that part is legend, not history.
Look for this
Before you head down onto the steps, look at the boundary wall running off to your right. This is where the paid nature reserve begins. It's also your last clear phone signal for a while: the ridge and the caves ahead block reception, so if you were going to check the weather for a Levanter cloud, now is the moment.
Stops normally appear on their own. Use this if the satellites are slow; under the ridge they usually are.