The Typical Badlands Landscapes Between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Tiber River

Abstract

A mixture of special geomorphological conditions and extraordinary cultural interests is collected in the country between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Tiber River. In the Holocene severe erosion processes shaped Plio-Pleistocene marine claystones, highly uplifted during the Quaternary, producing spectacular badlands landscapes with calanchi and biancane landforms. Calanchi show a resistant caprock, driving a parallel-retreating evolution of rugged steep slopes; biancane are rounded landforms, related to clayey outcrops in low-relief areas. Badlands have been greatly modified by anthropogenic activity: most of biancane and some calanchi were smoothed in the twentieth century, mainly to the widening of sowable land. For these reasons, a very peculiar badlands landscape is recognizable today.