History of Gibraltar the narrowest points in the Mediterranean, only from the coast of Morocco in North Africa. Its position on the bay makes it an advantageous natural anchorage for ships. As one writer has put it, "whoever controls Gibraltar also controls the movement of ships into and out of the Mediterranean. In terms of military and naval power, few places have a more strategic location than Gibraltar." The territory's area measures only . Most of the land area is occupied by the steeply sloping Rock of Gibraltar which reaches a height of . The town of Gibraltar lies at the base of
Rock of Gibraltar of dark bluish-gray, unfossiliferous shale, which is interbedded with thin layers of grit, mudstone, and limestone. It predates the Gibraltar Limestone. The Dockyard Shale Formation is an undescribed variegated shale of unknown age that lies buried beneath the Gibraltar's dockyard and coastal protection structures. Although these geological formations were deposited during the early part of the Jurassic Period some 175-200 million years ago, their current appearance is due to far more recent events of about 5 million years ago. When the African tectonic plate collided tightly with the Eurasian plate, the Mediterranean became a lake that, over the course of