Montegibbio mud volcano field, Sassuolo, Modena Province, Emilia-Romagna, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Montegibbio mud volcano field	Group of Mud Volcanoes
Sassuolo	Commune
Modena Province	Province
Emilia-Romagna	Region
Italy	Country

It consists of two groups of mud volcanoes, i.e., the northern historical group (Salsa di Sopra), presently inactive, and the southern active group (Salsa di Sotto) along the right bank of Rio Ghinella.

The historical site (Salsa di Sopra), presently inactive, is the most famous mud volcano of Italy and the first in the world to be recorded in the ancient chronicles.

The 91 BC eruption is described by Pliny the Elder in Natural History, Book II (ca. AD 77-79) as follows: «Factum est semel, quod equidem in Etruscae disciplinae voluminibus invenio, ingens terrarum portentum L. Marcio Sexto Iulio in agro Mutinensi. Namque montes duo inter se concurrerunt crepito maximo adsultantes recedentesque, inter eos flamma fumoque in caelum exeunte interdiu, spectante e via Aemilia magna equitum Romanorum familiarumque et viatorum multitudine. Eo concursu villae omnes elisae, animalia permulta, quae intra fuerant, exanimata sunt, anno ante sociale bellum, quod haud scio an funestius terrae ipsi Italiae fuerit quam civilia», i.e., «A remarkable prodigy of the earth, mention of which indeed I found in the books of the Etruscan science, occurred once in the territory of Mutina [Modena] under the consulship of Lucius Marcius [Philippus] and Sextus Julius [Caesar]. Exactly, two hills run into each other leaping and retreating with a very loud crash, with flame and smoke emitted from them into the sky in the daytime, with a large crowd of Roman knights (equites), servants and travelers who were spectators from the Via Aemilia. All the farmhouses were destroyed by the collision, very many animals that were in them killed. It was in the year before the Social War and, in this regard, I do not know whether this same [event] or the civil [wars] were more calamitous to the territory of Italy»[1].

After the 91 BC eruption, a documented eruption dates back to 1594, when the neighbour village of San Polo was destroyed. Other eruptions were recorded in 1603, 1628, 1684, 1781, 1786, 1790, 1835 e 1900. The mud volcano activity ceased around 1910.

Four or five very little mud volcanoes, from which water and gas (essentially methane) are emitted, are present at the southern active site (Salsa di Sotto). A flow of blackish petroleum came out from one of them, in 1988.

Loose, altered pentagonododecahedral crystals of pyrite are occasionally found in the soil near the mud volcanoes after heavy rainfall (Jervis, 1874; Malagoli, 1884).





[1] translated from Latin by Paolo Bosio, 2020.

Fossils

This region is too big or complex to display the fossil list, try looking at smaller subregions.

References