SEGNALAZIONE DI NUOVI DEPOSITI PIROCLASTICI INTERCALATI ALLE SUCCESSIONI CONTINENTALI DEL PLEISTOCENE SUPERIORE-OLOCENE DELLA PORZIONE NORD-ORIENTALE DELLA PIANA CAMPANA

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to signal some new outcrops of pyroclastic deposits along the northern rim of the Campanian plain, (province of Caserta); the study refers particularly to pyroclastic successions located both at the base and at the bottom of the “Ignimbrite Campana” (IC), the most widespread volcanic formation in the area.
The oldest deposits in the area have been found near the Solopaca village, at the northern sector of the studied area; they are made
up by alternating black and grey pumiceous levels some meters thick, and are covered by poligenic conglomerates of alluvial fan that
can be chronologically ascribed to the end of middle Pleistocene. In the surroundings of Maddaloni and Durazzano however, the deposits standing below the IC formation are characterized by the presence of two distinct pyroclastic units. The oldest one is represented by a pyroclastic fall deposit, at least 50 cm thick, included within slope or alluvial fan deposits. The youngest is made up by a yellow pumices flow with a thickness variable between 2 and 10 m, which always covers with erosional contact, the above described slope or alluvial fan deposits.
At the top of IC formation another important pyroclastic level has been found all over the studied area. It is made up by white layered
ash fall deposits covered by a massive, yellowish pumiceous level and its total thickness range is from 0,5 to 1 meter.
All these new outcrops have been sampled for sedimentological, chemical and petrographical analysis that are still in progress, in
order to identify their origin and to better define their chronological and stratigraphical position within the complex volcanic history of
The Campania Plain.