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The Geological Heritage of Salento Leccese Area (Apulia, southern Italy)

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Abstract

The Salento peninsula is a well-known Apulian tourist area. Its peculiar geological and geomorphological features also have attracted numerous researchers during the last 150 years. The importance of the Salento geological heritage and identification of key sites was determined by literature review, assessment of the records of field trips in and around the Salento area during scientific geological meetings, and conferences over the last 30 years, using a geographical information system. Furthermore, these sites identified are the Otranto-Castro and Gallipoli-Porto Selvaggio coastal areas, the area of Leuca as well as the area between Cursi and Melpignano. The Otranto-Castro area contains Late Cretaceous Rudist reefs and Ammonites, an Upper Oligocene reef complex, as well as Lower Pleistocene calcarenites containing slumps and erosional features. The coastal landscape is marked by boulder accumulations produced by a historical tsunami. The Gallipoli-Porto Selvaggio area is noted for its abundant remains of Strombus bubonius Lamarck. In Porto Selvaggio, there is a rich fossiliferous association with abundant taxa of fish found in Cretaceous dolomitic and calcareous layers, with the rocks showing thin chert layers and spectacular slump features that had been triggered by tectonic activity. The Leuca area is the location for the stratotype of the Leuca Formation and by the occurrence of Grotta del Diavolo, a coastal cave that exhibits polycyclic evolution in the Middle Pleistocene. Finally, the Cursi-Melpignano area is important for its numerous quarries of Pietra Leccese Formation that have yielded numerous fossils of Miocene marine vertebrates. The results from the analysis point to the valuable geological heritage of the Salento area which is still completely unexploited by the local tourist industry. Data reported in this paper could be usefully integrated in plans aiming to build a cultural tourist attraction in Salento area.

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Acknowledgments

This paper has been financially supported as part of the Research Project COFIN MIUR 2010–2011 “Response of morphoclimatic system dynamics to global changes and related geomorphological hazard” (National Coordinator: Prof. Carlo Baroni, Università degli Studi di Pisa). The paper is an Italian contribution to the project IGCP 588—International Geological Correlation Programme “Preparing for coastal change. A detailed response process framework for coastal change at different times” by UNESCO–IUGS (project Leaders: Dr. A.D. Switzer, Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS), Nanyang Technological University; Dr. C. Sloss, School of Natural resources Sciences, Queensland Univ. of Technology, Australia; Dr. B. Horton, Dep. of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Univ. of Pennsylvania; and Dr. Y. Zong, Dep. of Earth Sciences, Univ. of Hong Kong, China). The authors would like to thank Vic Semeniuk for refining the English of their final text.

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  1. Di.S.Te.B.A, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Paolo Sansò, Stefano Margiotta & Andrea Vitale

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali, Università degli Studi “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy

    Giuseppe Mastronuzzi

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  1. Paolo Sansò
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  2. Stefano Margiotta
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  3. Giuseppe Mastronuzzi
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Correspondence to Paolo Sansò.

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Sansò, P., Margiotta, S., Mastronuzzi, G. et al. The Geological Heritage of Salento Leccese Area (Apulia, southern Italy). Geoheritage 7, 85–101 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-013-0093-5

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