Glacial features in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines (Italy). Evidences from the Abetone area.

The highest peaks of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines often show ancient glacial landforms and deposits, among which cirques, moraine ridges, overdeepned hollows, roches moutonnée and striations are represented. In this paper, the fundamental traces of the last glaciations in the Abetone area are synthetically illustrated. The data acquired in time by many Authors allowed glacial chronology to be reconstructed, starting from late Upper Pleistocene. As regards the Abetone area (Rio delle Pozze and Torrente Motte valleys), glacial traces referable only to the Alpine Würm III were recognized. In this area, an attempt to reconstruct a relative chronology of the stadial phases identified forms related to Apennines Stages I and II. On the contrary, the Apennines Stage III did not leave any trace, since its permanent snow limit would be found at heights superior to those of the peaks of this area. ), The lack of traces of glacial periods older than the Würm may be explained with the hypothesis that they could be obliterated by erosional processes linked to the considerable uplift of this sector occurring from the Middle-Upper Pleistocene and continuing to date.