Bartolomeo Gastaldi (1818–1879) and the “glacial erratics” of the Torino Hill, NW Italy

In 1850, the Italian geologist Bartolomeo Gastaldi (1818–1879) first documented the glacial origin of the deposits belonging to the Rivoli–Avigliana and Ivrea end-moraine systems (Piemonte, NW Italy) in a joint note with Charles Frédéric Martins. The authors also interpreted as glacial erratics the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of earth sciences : Geologische Rundschau 2021-07, Vol.110 (5), p.1863-1873
Main Author: Barale, Luca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boulders
Conglomerates
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Geochemistry
Geologists
Geology
Geophysics/Geodesy
Glacial deposits
Glacial drift
Glacial erratics
Glacial periods
Glaciers
History of Earth Sciences
Hypotheses
Ice ages
Marine sediments
Metamorphic rocks
Mineral Resources
Miocene
Moraines
Quaternary
Quaternary glaciers
Rafting
Sedimentology
Sediments
Structural Geology
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Summary:In 1850, the Italian geologist Bartolomeo Gastaldi (1818–1879) first documented the glacial origin of the deposits belonging to the Rivoli–Avigliana and Ivrea end-moraine systems (Piemonte, NW Italy) in a joint note with Charles Frédéric Martins. The authors also interpreted as glacial erratics the large boulders, mainly made up of metamorphic rocks, scattered on the Torino Hill, thus envisaging an enormous advancement of Quaternary glaciers, well beyond the position of the two moraine amphitheaters. A decade later, Gastaldi corrected himself and recognised the boulders as derived from the erosion of Miocene marine conglomerates, invoking ice-rafting to explain their presence within marine sediments. This hypothesis was supported by no less an authority than Charles Lyell, who had visited the places in company of Gastaldi in 1857. Gastaldi’s ice-rafting hypothesis implied periods of large glacier development in Southern Europe during the Miocene, and soon entered the debate on the existence and extent of past glacial periods which animated the European geological community in the late nineteenth century.
ISSN:1437-3254
1437-3262
DOI:10.1007/s00531-021-02048-2