UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Soils and soilscapes of the Upper Volturno basin: a detailed survey of a large intermontane basin in the Central-Southern Apennines, Italy van Otterloo, R.H.; Sevink, J. DOI 10.1080/17445647.2021.1875064 Publication date 2021 Document Version Final published version Published in Journal of Maps License CC BY Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): van Otterloo, R. H., & Sevink, J. (2021). Soils and soilscapes of the Upper Volturno basin: a detailed survey of a large intermontane basin in the Central-Southern Apennines, Italy. Journal of Maps, 17(2), 63-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1875064 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). 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Sevink (2021) Soils and soilscapes of the Upper Volturno basin: a detailed survey of a large intermontane basin in the Central-Southern Apennines, Italy, Journal of Maps, 17:2, 63-72, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2021.1875064 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1875064 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Journal of Maps View supplementary material Published online: 11 Feb 2021. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 312 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tjom20 JOURNAL OF MAPS 2021, VOL. 17, NO. 2, 63–72 https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1875064 SCIENCE Soils and soilscapes of the Upper Volturno basin: a detailed survey of a large intermontane basin in the Central-Southern Apennines, Italy R. H. van Otterloo and J. Sevink Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Soils of the Upper Volturno basin in the Central-Southern Apennines (Molise, Italy) were Received 14 August 2020 surveyed in detail. Trends in development are described with focus on the contrast between Revised 8 January 2021 the mountain soils and the soils of the basin. Mountain soils are shallow and poorly Accepted 8 January 2021 developed. Topsoils in the central and eastern areas and on N-facing slopes have a large KEYWORDS Late Pleistocene tephra component (Campi Flegrei) and are Andic. Basin soils from a distinct Soil survey; soil chronosequence: early Mid-Pleistocene deep highly weathered Chromic Luvisols/Nitosols in chronosequence; tephra; old surfaces of the fluvio-lacustrine fill, less developed soils in Late Pleistocene terraces and intermontane basin; Italy fans, and recent Fluvisols in the Holocene sediments of the Volturno River and tributaries. In the basin, Mid-Pleistocene Roccamonfina tephra play an important role. In the SW, it occurs as thick layers, blanketing the fluvio-lacustrine/fan deposits. The soil pattern clearly reflects the complex geological history of the basin, with prominent subsidence in the SW. Introduction and landscape in the area concerned, with emphasis In the 1970s, physical geographers from the University on the important role played by the Campanian of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) executed a large volcanism. A full set of basic background data and series of soil surveys in Central Italy. For the Upper extensive reviews of the current state of knowledge Volturno basin several soil maps were produced (see in relevant topics is available as a set of 9 appendices Figure 1). Some results were published in connection Supplementary Material. The topics include the with the discovery by the Dutch team of the famous geology, the history of the Campanian volcanoes Isernia La Pineta site, described in Coltorti (1983). and their tephrochronology, and soil formation These include the first K-Ar datings for its tephra and weathering in the Central Mediterranean. It (Sevink et al., 1981) and a concise description of the also contains a full set of all references cited.1 Quaternary evolution of the Upper Volturno basin, This study is one of a small number of detailed with soil data and a generalized soil map (Van Otter- studies of soils and soilscapes in the Apennine range loo & Sevink, 1983). and its intermontane basins in Central/Southern A recent impulse for integration of the several Italy. It illustrates the complex soil patterns that are unpublished soil maps into a single map and expla- encountered in Mediterranean mountain ranges natory report was generated by the archaeological where the basins were beyond the reach of periglacial studies executed in the Molise region by the Leiden denudation and mass wasting during the colder phases University (The Netherlands). This is exemplified by of the Quaternary. They hold soil chronosequences recent papers in which soil maps of the Isernia area that reach far back into that period and reflect the play an important role (Casarotto, 2018; Casarotto important role of parent material in the so-called et al., 2018; Stek et al., 2015). For these publications long cycles of soil development (Duchaufour, 2012). we reviewed the existing earlier maps and integrated Our study also contributes to knowledge of Quatern- the soil maps mentioned above into one single soil ary landscape genesis of the Upper Volturno Basin, map (at scale 1:25.000) that covers a major part of which holds major archaeological sites amongst the Upper Volturno basin (‘Main Map’). Addition- which the well-known and famous Lower Palaeolithic ally, we assembled the existing soil data and relevant Isernia La Pineta site (Coltorti, 1983), and the Lower/ literature and translated these into a concise descrip- Middle Palaeolithic key site at Guado San Nicola (Per- tion of the genesis and characteristics of the soils eira et al., 2016; Peretto et al., 2016). CONTACT J. Sevink [email protected] Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), University of Amsterdam, Sciencepark 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1875064 This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Journal of Maps This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrest- ricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 64 R. H. VAN OTTERLOO AND J. SEVINK Figure 1. Overview of the topography of the Upper Volturno basin, also showing the delineation of the area surveyed and of the individual earlier soil maps. A = R. van Otterloo; B = T. Koopmans; C = J. Tak. Materials Figure 2 provides a general picture of the geological The Upper Volturno basin is mountainous and structure of the area, which forms part of the Apen- includes major peaks and ranges reaching to between nines. Meso–Cenozoic carbonate platform and 1800 and 2000m asl. In addition to a large central slope-basin units, which include the Matese and Mon- basin, which is drained by the Volturno river and its tagnola di Frosolone units, dominate the SW sector of tributaries and runs from Isernia in the NE to Venafro the Molise region. Less common are upper Miocene in the SW. There are several smaller intermontane siliciclastic foredeep deposits (Molise Flysch; e.g. Sper- basins between 300 and 700 m asl (see Figure 1). anza et al., 1998) overlying the older carbonate units. Within this area, because of its strong relief, tempera- In Figure 2, Plio-Quaternary deposits are indicated ture and precipitation vary considerably. The basins as a single unit, composed of continental, marine and adjacent lower terrains have a distinctly Mediter- and volcanic deposits and dated as Middle Pleistocene ranean Cfa climate (Köppen, 1936) with a mean pp – Holocene. In the area concerned (Isernia pro- annual temperature between 16°C and 14°C and a vince) these are predominantly continental deposits. mean annual precipitation between 800 and 900 The earliest Pleistocene deposits and associated land mm, whereas higher parts have a Cfb climate, with surfaces date back to the early Middle Pleistocene, mean annual temperatures of 12°C and lower, and while the youngest are of Holocene age. A series of mean annual precipitation increases to over 1000 intermediate phases can be distinguished, resulting mm (Aucelli et al., 2007). in a complex soil pattern and gradational history. JOURNAL OF MAPS 65 Figure 2. Geological sketch map showing the distribution of the main tectonic units and Pliocene – Quaternary deposits in the Campania–Molise portion of the central-southern Apennines (Source: Amato et al., 2017).