Cyprus: Island of Snakes, Cats, and Ophiolites

Executive Briefing

According to reporting by NASA Space & Missions, The third-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea exposes an ancient piece of the ocean floor and hosts a clowder of cats.

Detailed Factual Report

The third-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea exposes an ancient piece of the ocean floor and hosts a clowder of cats.

The island of Cyprus began to form some 90 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous , with molten rock pouring from the seafloor, solidifying, and building new oceanic crust . Over time, portions of this oceanic rock were wrenched upward by tectonic forces , eventually emerging as a rugged island made of ophiolite , a type of rock with a mottled green appearance said to look like the skin of a snake. Remnants of that ancient island are still visible in the dark rocks of the Troodos Mountains .

During the Miocene , considerably younger layers of chalk, limestone, marl, and other marine sedimentary rocks accumulated around the island, providing material that developed into a second, smaller island to the south during a later period of geologic uplift . Over time, sediment poured from rivers into the channel separating the two islands and combined with marine sediments to create deltas and eventually two land bridges, or tombolos . The joined landmass comprises the Akrotiri Peninsula , now the southernmost tip of Cyprus.

The sandy edges of the peninsula were visible when Landsat 8 captured these images on October 10, 2026. Akrotiri Salt Lake , a coastal lagoon that was once an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, lies between the two tombolos. The more westerly feature, the Kouris River tombolo, formed first, developing about 50,000 years ago from river-deposited gravels and sands. The eastern tombolo extended southward from Cyprus, cutting off the Mediterranean Sea only within the past 2,000 years, according to geologists .

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Source & Verification Provenance

Information in this article was compiled directly from records provided by NASA Space & Missions. Access the primary source document at: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/cyprus-island-of-snakes-cats-and-ophiolites/. Reporting and editorial review conducted by the USA NOW News Desk.