Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Apuan Alps	Mountain Range
Tuscany	Region
Italy	Country

The Apuan Alps are a mountain range with a roughly elliptic shape, located in the provinces of Massa-Carrara and Lucca. Their geographical boundaries are the Serchio River to the NE and SE; the Aulella River to the north; the Magra River to the NW; the Versilia coastal plain between the Magra and Serchio rivers to the SW.

The name "Alps" given to this mountain chain is due to a very typical alpine appearance of their high peaks, narrow ridges, and deep-cut valleys. This alpine appearance is further emphasised by the morphological contrast with the Versilia plain and the River Serchio valley.

The climatic features of the Apuan Alps mainly derive from the interaction between these geographical/morphological features and the general and local atmospheric path. Shape, elevation, and location of the chain intercept the western and local perturbations of Atlantic or Mediterranean origin and produce the forced lifting of humid air masses, so favouring their rapid adiabatic cooling. Consequently, very heavy yearly meteoric affluxes are registered, with a mean annual rainfall of over 3000 mm close to the watershed. In the Apuan Alps, intense rainstorms are particularly frequent in autumn and often cause many landslides and flash floods.

The Apuan Alps represent a tectonic window in the Northern Apennines nappe edifice and, therefore, are a key area in the geological frame of the Northern Apennines. In fact, the Tuscan metamorphic units (the Apuan Unit and the Massa Unit) characterised by greenschist-facies metamorphism, the Tuscan Nappe, the Ligurian and Subligurian units, and Neogene sequences crop out in this area (Zaccagna, 1932; Carmignani & Giglia, 1984; Carmignani et al., 1994; Carmignani et al., 2000; Conti et al., 2004). The main structure of the mountain chain includes two chief tectonic metamorphic units: the Massa Unit and the Apuan ("Autochthon Auctt.") Unit. A pre-Mesozoic basement and a thick Middle to Upper Triassic cover characterise the former, exposed in the south-west part of the Apuan Alps. The latter is made up of a Palaeozoic basement, unconformably overlain by the Upper Triassic-Oligocene metasedimentary sequence.

Among the Apuan rocks, marble is certainly the best-known and most typical (Carrara marble is famous worldwide). However, other rock types (breccia, metasandstone) may also have ornamental or various uses. Within both the Massa Unit and the Apuan Unit, marble occurs at different stratigraphical positions. In fact, within the former unit, Middle-Triassic crinoid-bearing marbles are known, whereas in the Apuan Unit marble is present both in Triassic and Early Jurassic formations.

The Apuan Alps host a number of mineral deposits that display a great variety of mineralization styles and mineral assemblages. According to Lattanzi et al. (1994), the minerogenesis of the Apuan Alps is the result of several events that span the entire geological history of the region.