5 October 2018

Friday fold: Vernazza, Italy

Posted by Callan Bentley

A Friday fold from the legendary region of Cinque Terre, on Italy’s northwest coast:

This comes to us courtesy of my friend Callan Swenson – yes, there’s another Callan out there! – who’s there this week on vacation. This is near the village of Vernazza. The Other Callan is not a geologist, though, so we’re on our own to figure out the story of these outcrops. From a quick investigation online, it looks like this is a region where the Ligurian nappes have deformed the local rocks. There are ophiolites further to the north, but these appear to be a package of turbidites. Unfortunately, I can’t squeeze much useful information from the 1:1,250,000 scale Geological Map of Italy online. Oh well, chances are that at least a dozen of this blog’s reader have been to the site, and can share their knowledge in the comments below… Please, enlighten us!

(And: Happy Friday!)