Landslides or moraines? A new geomorphological map of the area of Mt. Cimone (the highest peak of the Northern Apennines, Italy)

The extent of the study area is about 20 km2 and its elevation ranges from about 1300 m a.s.l. to 2165 m a.s.l. With its typical pyramid-like shape, Mt. Cimone rises isolated and shifted to the north with respect to the Apennine watershed. From a geological point of view it is ascribable to the overthrust. The landforms and deposits of the study area may be mainly defined according to the following groups of morphogenetic factors and processes: glacial landforms and deposits, cryogenetic and nivation landforms and deposits, structural landforms, slope landforms and deposits due to gravity; landforms and deposits due to running water, anthropogenic landforms; they are shown in a new geomorphological map at the 1:10,000 scale. The presence of glaciers in the Mt. Cimone area, during the last glacial expansion, is witnessed by small cirques and vast moraine deposits modeled in the shape of ridges. Post-glacial slope landforms and deposits due to periglacial processes and gravity are very common. The landslides are of various types and essentially inactive. Worthy of note for their dimensions are some mass movements on the eastern sector of the study area. In the Mt. Cimone area small perennial or temporary lakes of structural, glacial and artificial origin are found. Finally, anthropogenetic landforms mainly linked to winter tourism, which has been particularly accentuated in the past decades, are widespread. The novelty of this work is that many zones mapped as landslide or debris slope deposits in previous papers, have been here considered as moraine deposits. The trenches, concavities and reverse slopes which locally characterize watersheds and slopes and which have been not considered in former papers, have been interpreted for the first time as the surface expression of "Deep-seated Gravitational Slope Deformations". The extent of the glacial features in the area is much wider than it was believed before. Moreover all the landslides are of post-glacial age as they involve or covers the glacial deposits. Therefore the main, or at least one of the most important, triggering factor of the Mt. Cimone mass movements, could be the glacial debuttressing.