Nature » Geology

Glacial Formations

The ice age has left a heritage of formations characterizing many environments of the Park (cirques, roches moutonnées, morainic deposits). During the last great glaciation (from about 75,000 to 10,000 years ago), the Park area was interested by the presence of both small local glaciers on the mountain summits and valley glaciers of regional relevance (Mis and Cordevole glaciers) supplied by the upper Agordino area, beyond the Park borders. The cirques (locally called "van" , "buse", "cadin") are the most significant glacial formations in the high-mountain landscapes of the Park. Shaped by small local glaciers, they usually take on the shape of large niches surrounded by steep slopes and characterized by a large and almost flat bottom or a basin-shaped bottom. In the Park, the bottom of the cirques is often reshaped by a process of karstic dissolution (glacial-karst basins). The most typical forms of glacial deposits that can be found at high altitudes are morainic banks, taking on the shape of small tapered or arched detrital hills, marking in this way the point reached by ice tongues before a stage of withdrawal. The gradual withdrawal of the great glacier of Piave from the valley bottom of Val Belluna has left an undulated morphology, with basins and depressions and the great system of ice moraines (ice transport landslides) of Masiere di Vedana.