PEDOSTRATIGRAPHIC NOTES ON THE MIDDLE – LATE PLEISTOCENE OF CAPO SAN VITO PENINSULA (NW SICILY)

Abstract

The available data about Quaternary pedostratigraphic of North-Western Sicily are mainly obtained when fossil vertebrate assemblages
are studied. These are often found in caves or in other morphological "traps", where the products of the erosion of soils developed outside these features are redeposited.
Soils that may have originated these deposits were found on the marine terraces that are typical of the coast areas of Sicily.
Two sequences, called "K22" and "Isolidda", that crop out in the North-Western side of the San Vito lo Capo peninsula – to the West of
Palermo - are examined in this work.
The first one is a karstic cave infilling, situated near the eastern rim of the old falaise that borders the Piana di Sopra plateau. Two phases were identified in this site. a) transitional environment deposits, with terrigenous input due to the occurrence of Alfisols and/or
Ultisols in the neighbouring area. b) continental deposits, mainly made up of reworked terra rossa, that point to fluctuations of the erosive regime. The aeolian input can be observed throughout the sequence and is apparently stronger in the uppermost levels. This deposition ends at the end of the Pleistocene.
The second one is a thick sedimentary body that occupies a tectonic depression, near Torre Isolidda. This sequence is made up of
alternating colluvia, éboulis ordonnés and palaeosols dating back to the Late Pleistocene.
The aim of this study is to ascertain which environmental condition affected the deposition of the lithological units of these two sequences and to correlate them to the climatic phases of the Middle-Late Pleistocene.
The study of the macroscopic characteristics of the sequences has been carried out in detail with the help of soil micromorphological
observations.