Vocca Island 3

Looking towards Cima Lavaggio, you can see the section of the Earth’s crust that used to lie at a depth of around 25 km and is now at the surface.

From left to right (in order of decreasing depth), the following can be identified: 1) the reddish-brown rocks of the Balmuccia peridotite, a fragment of the Earth’s mantle that forms Cima Lavaggio; 2) the grey rocks, namely the gabbros that form the so-called Basic Complex, crystallised from basaltic magma that intruded into the crust some 288 million years ago; 3) the red rocks resulting from the accumulation of olivine crystals, which were also formed from the intrusive basaltic magma.

Originally horizontal, this sequence of rocks was tilted vertically as a result of the collision between Europe and Africa.