GEOGRAFIE AND GEOMORFOLOGIE

The Mountain Community "Peninsola Amalfitana takes care of Lattari mountains starting from Southern part of the peninsola deviding The Golf of Naples from that one of Salerno by Picentini mountains and all the way till its Northern part (Nocera and Sarno).It includes the limestone part of the mountains which is tending to slide from the North - toward the flat part  (Nocera and Sarno) , from the South - toward the sea, extending till the most Western Coast of The Salerno Province.   Regardless to complications of the oreographical factors creating erosions, the historical importance and the landscape with its geologic vegetational complex makes this zone  one of most evocative tourist places in Italy.

The morphology of Sorrentinian and Amalfitanian Peninsola is  mostly consisted from high or medium slops together with the fluvial walloons and a very limited plain areas. 

The Amalfitanian Coast mountain with a cliff is characterized by phenomena of frequent slides, occurred from the extremly high erosive power of water.  It engages great part of Southern Lattari Mountains from Punta della Campanella till Mount San Michele (1444slm), Mount Candelito (1201slm) and till Cereto Mount (1316slm). Beyond the Cerreto Mount the main ridge turns into the arc starting from Conca di Tramonti, than to Mezzogiorno, including the Mount of Chuinzi (mt. 855),  the Mount St. Angelo of Cava (mt. 1130) and Mount Finestra (mt. 1140). This type of relief is geologically classified as carbonatic marine sediment of a Mesozoic era's plate and belongs to the carbonatic series of platform , Campano-Lucano.Those formations had undergone certain faces of tectonic compression in Miocene era (about 23-37 million years ago) and further dislocation in vertical direction.    As a result Mesozoic parts are overlapped with quaternal, such as alluvial coming out from the slopes and beaches dregs. 

   The Mesozoic formations of  the Coastal line are composed from outcropped dolomites, limekilns with notable prevalence of the last ones.     These formations are object of an intense fracture especially at the surface part which leads to construct a hydro complex with a good water tank. The superficial hydrography is characterized by numerous incisins, which engage in great number of the Southern displuvial where one can distinguish the main torrents as Regina-Major, Bonea, Sambuco and Dragone.       

  The Northern part flows down toward Cavaiola and the river bed Nocerino, moreover constituted the most large water basin of the area.

 

        CLIMATIC CHARACTERISTICS 

  The extreme variability of the present orohydrographicac system and the morphological diversification between the various zones determines a microclimate quite homogeneous.  The variety of altimetry creates a remarkable difference in vegetation of the area. A  combination of a  presence of the sea and the mountains from the North provides a mild and rainy  winters and  moderately hot, dry summers, therefore makes our area the most privileged amoung others in the Region from the tourist point of view.  The annual medium temperature remains between 16 and 20 C along the Coast and between 12 and 16 C on the North part of the area. In the more elevated part of the area the minimum temperature goes down between 8 and 12 C.    This situation generates a distribution of isotherms strictly responding to the altimetry of the place. A result of precipitation depends so much on the presence of the limestone. Therefore the precipitation recorded with an annual medium value of 1500 millimetres is expecting in the  North part and only 1000 along the Coast. Such precipitations with a period of 100 rainy days  are distributed more intensily in the elevated part rather than the Coast.   A summer precipitation represent about 10% of those annual totals.   What is concerning of wind , "the libeccio" prevails all the others.

 

 

                                              LOCAL VEGETATION

  On the reliefs and along the slops of the mounts Lattari there is  remarkable variety of biotypes determined by quality of soil, orography and exposure, especially by presence of slopes and cliffs. Such morphological variability together with a distinction of exposure makes to  compress altitudinal levels, therefore determines sudden changes of vegetational pictures with clear form of penetration of levels never classified as prevailed  species.

   The landscape of the Amalfitanian Coast might be divided  at least by three types: olive and carob trees (in the marine zones exposed to the South), ilex or holm-oak trees,  orniello , roverella and the shrabs of small sizes as the heather and arbutus (in the middle part)  the napolitanian alder and chestnut trees (at the most elevated zones)where you can find a carpino, ash trees and a beech trees.   Beside these endogenous vegetation ,  man cultivated plants, citruses and grape trees are taking a considerable part of  rural area not a very slopy one.    An important role in a formation of the landscape play a carob tree which is a major part of the "mixed forest' and grows in the middle part close to holm-oak tree all the way till the sea level.   In the evegreen zone of the middle part  there are different types of trees, such as heather and arbutus and orniello and roverella.  On the elevated part of the mountains  a napolitanian alder and  a chestnut trees. prevail over holm-oak and roverella. Than there are a cherry trees, oak and more rare beech trees, which present  commercial ninterest. A napolitanian alder, quite diffused in the Southern Apennines and Preapennines arboreal species, which also constituting a base element of the vagitational mantel of the elevated zone does not represent any more a dominant essence. For reason of better economic exploitation of the territory a chestnut tree was introduced by man recently and became the most characterizing specie of that landscape.