As I discussed in my first entry, there are 7 distinct hills
in Rome that form the geographical heart of the city. These hills are named the Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, and the original city of Romulus was
built on the Palatine Hill. The existence of the hills alone begs the question
of how they were formed. According to Greek mythology, Romulus and Remus, sons
of Mars, created the hills. Now, the Romans didn’t have the kind of science available
to them that we do today, so we know that part isn’t true (as much as we’d like
to take the easy way out and explain the phenomenon with myths). The way these
hills came together is explained in the video below.
.jpg/300px-Luftbild_Montefiascone_01_(RaBoe).jpg)
Rome is located in the Eurasian Plate.
However, Rome isn’t located near enough to a fault in the plate to have many
earthquakes. The North-South fault and the East-West faults in Italy are
located closer to central Italy, and Rome is in the western border. Italy
itself is seismically active on the faults, but not so much in Rome.
Volcanic activity is also common in
Italy. To the North-Northwest of Rome, the Vulsini Volcanic District exists as
a region of intrusive igneous rock with a cluster of calderas (the
Montefiascone Caldera is pictured to the right) that have actually been formed
and active within recent history. These are the same volcanoes and calderas
that gave rise to the Apennine Mountains. A map of Italy’s volcanoes is
pictured to the left.
Image sources: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Luftbild_Montefiascone_01_(RaBoe).jpg/300px-Luftbild_Montefiascone_01_(RaBoe).jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Italy_volcano_map.png
Video Source: http://youtu.be/VUHEgT5m-Kg
