Radiocarbon dating on landslides in the Northern Apennines (Italy)

The regional Geological Survey has identified over 70,000 landslide bodies, covering one fifth of the entire mountain area of Emilia-Romagna Region. From a morphological point of view, a good 90% of these are large, ancient earth flows, nourished by shaly and structurally complex formations. The evolutionary stages of past landslide activity are here outlined more precisely thanks to the C-14 dating techniques performed on 40 wood remnants collected by means of core borings at different depth inside the landslide bodies. As a paleo-climatic indicator, this data suggests the existence of a wetter period (Sub-boreal, early Sub-Atlantic) within the Holocene in the Northern Apennines.