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Later, Dunn and Luis Chiappe, the Natural History Museum’s head of research and collections, hiked down the flysch to get a closer look.

Zumaia’s flysch — the geologic term for this kind of rock formation — is not the only flysch on Earth.

But it is by wide agreement the very best flysch of all.

It is actually a cluster of many tiny villages embowered by the Alps to the north and the Adriatic to the south, each photogenically situated upon soft-rolled hilltops and flysch soil, with a unique terroir that has been named one of the best in the world for white wine.

A glacial origin has been suggested for numerous other conglomeratic formations, such as the Pre-Cambrian Torridonian of Scotland, and “Geisaschichten” of Norway; the basal Carboniferous conglomerate of parts of England; the Permian breccias of England and parts of Europe; the Trias of Devonshire; the coarse conglomerates in the Tertiary Flysch in central Europe; and the Miocene conglomerates of the Ligurian Apennines.