Geomorphology and Neotectonics of Valle Sacra in the Upper Canavese country, Western Alps, Piedmont, Italy

Abstract

This Explanatory Note concerns the new 1:12 500 map of the Valle Sacra, a north tributary into the River Orco near its mouth into the Po Plain. The Neotectonics is typically that of vertical faults causing different epeirogenetic movements between blocks. This was recognized mainly by anomalous contacts fresh rock/alterites, a method I have successfully applied in the Valle Gallenca at the opposite bank of the Orco. An impressive mass exists of Middle Pleistocene sediments and alterites both bearing the same pedological stamp of the Riss-Würm Interglacials. Fault scarps formed and repeatidly moving during the Riss-Würm times produced not only detritus, rockfalls, glaciers, alluvium and glacis (depositionals and erosionals) but also maroccoids (belts, flows and erratics), a new signe of neotectonic morphologies to be distinguished.