Paesaggio, suolo, tempo: la rappresentazione dei tempi geologici nella citta' di Catania

Abstract

Geologic time is a way of contextualizing the material processes of the Earth within its long history. The geologic time scale divides the long history of the earth in eons, eras, periods and epochs, not separately, but in relation to each other depending on what emerges from the analysis of stratigraphic data and the different levels of the crust of the earth.Recently, studies related to territory and landscape have introduced the idea that the current Holocene epoch that began 11,700 years ago has ended and has been replaced by a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene, or, 'the era of human race'. To confirm or reject this hypothesis, we started from two conceptual categories of landscape: the terrestrial landscape and the constructed landscape. We apply this research using the case study of Catania, Sicily. The soil of the city of Catania is built is through both the intense work of man – in the last 40 years going back to the seventeenth century and to antiquity with the ancient Greeks – and, through substantial geological activity – by the many volcanoes and frequent earthquakes over the centuries. The analysis is defined by a sectioning and dissection of the historical stratigraphy of the ground of Catania. It reveals how the form of the city and landscape of Catania has undergone exceptional change and mutation evolving slowly in geologic time, more so than any other European city. It is therefore an interesting object of study to examine the relationship between landscape, time and use.