Some data for the chronological framework of the Late Pleistocene glacial phases of Mt. Greco and Mt. Serra Chiarano (Abruzzi-Central Italy)

Abstract

The studies carried out on the glacial traces of the mountains Greco and Rocca Serra Chiarano allowed for the identification of seven generations of moraines younger than the last glacial maximum. The age of the most recent moraines was deduced by the presence of loess and tephra found in intermorainic depressions and glacial cirques. It was possible to establish that the more recent moraines (phase VII) were before the deposition of the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff and after the sedimentation of a quartz-rich loess; their age appears to be from between 12,000 and 13,000/14,000 years BP. All of the preceding moraines would have been formed before the end of the sedimentation of the same loess, therefore before ca. 13,000-14,000 years BP. On the phase V moraines, the loess contains a tephra analogous to that which at the Matese has been chronologically attributed to 14-15,000 years BP. It is quite probable that these moraines were before ca. 15,000 BP. It follows that the moraines of phase VI go back to a period preceding the end of the loess sedimentation (13,000/14,000 years BP) and following the fall of the tephra datable to ca. 14,000/15,000 years BP. Presently, there are no useful elements for dating the preceding glacial phases. The results of the present study indicate that the last moraines of Mt. Greco and Mt. Serra Chiarano are older than what hypothesized by previous authors which did not have at their disposal elements of direct dating.