The Seven Hills and Volcanic Activity

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.

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