Search results for " geosite."
showing 4 items of 4 documents
The Potential Geosite of the “Libeccio Antico” Quarries: a Sedimentological and Stratigraphic Characterisation of Ornamental Stone from Mt Cocuccio, …
2018
The Custonaci marble district of western Sicily is known for the production of a valuable ornamental stone that has been, and nowadays is exploited due to its suitable properties and aesthetic qualities. The “Libeccio Antico” was, among the “marbles”, the most appreciated ornamental stone during the Baroque Age (the XVII–XVIII centuries), due to its strong polychrome contrasts from ivory to yellow, green or dark red. This polychrome pattern is the result of dissolution processes that involved an Upper Triassic peritidal limestone. The varicoloured sediments in paleocavities, collapse breccias, paleosols and neptunian dykes that occur in the “Libeccio Antico” represent the peculiar character…
Geoconservation in Sicily (Italy): the Example of the Isola delle Femmine (Palermo)
2022
Abstract The Regional Administration of Sicily recently erected Isola delle Femmine—a small island of the Tyrrhenian Sea, close to Palermo—as a geosite. A detailed geological survey has been carried out in order to define the most important geological features of the island together with the development of a new geological map based on topographic data and a digital model at 1:2.000 scale specially processed. Finally, a geological pathway through the island has been traced and illustrated. The geological substrate of Isola delle Femmine consists of a Mesozoic carbonate succession belonging to the Panormide Carbonate Platform. Two lithostratigraphic units have been differentiated. The lowest…
Processi paleocarsici e geositi: il caso del “libeccio antico” nel distretto marmifero di Custonaci, Sicilia nord-occidentale
2016
Abstract The Upper Triassic strata that crops out along the northern slope of Monte Sparagio, in the Custonaci “marble” district in northwestern Sicily, show an extensive development of dissolution cavities with a very variable shape and dimensions. Several different types of dissolution morphologies can be differentiated from microkarst to giant caverns. The cavities are filled up by polychrome silts or calcite cements or, in the larger caverns, by collapse breccias. The matrix between the collapse breccias is a polychrome silt that gives rise to an attractive ornamental stone, quarried in the past with the name of “Libeccio Antico”. The diagenetic processes that have controlled the format…
A GEOSITE TO BE SAVED: THE TYRRHENIAN FOSSIL DEPOSIT ON THE ISLAND OF USTICA
2014
During the 1960s, fossil beds characterized by a tropical-sea malacofauna were discovered by G. Ruggieri and G. Buccheri in the Island of Ustica, on the southern slope of Falconiera hill, 32 m asl. Thanks to the presence of Strombus bubonius and other Senegalese guests, the authors estimated that the molluscan fauna had lived around 125,000 years ago, during the Tyrrhenian stage. Recently on the initiative of the “Centro Studi e Documentazione Isola di Ustica”, a research has been initiated to verify the persistence of sand-layers mixed up with Tyrrhenian fossils, even though, in the last 50 years, that area has undergone great changes, because of earthworks which have sealed the deposit. T…