DOLOMITES - Annexes 2-8 - Provincia di Udine

NOMINATION OF THE DOLOMITES FOR INSCRIPTION ON THE WORLD NATURAL HERITAGE LIST UNESCO
13
Werner nomenclature) looked as resting on the fossiliferous Floetzgebirge (bedded rocks), a geometric
relationship hard to explain following the Werner’s genetic model. Von Humboldt wrote the first
geological synthesis of the Dolomites geology and accurately studied the Predazzo intrusion, suggesting
what would today call a Mesozoic age for the volcanites and dikes, but maintaining the primary
origin of the granite. Christian Leopold von Buch remained very impressed by the Predazzo observations
and, corroborated by other discoveries he made in Norway, he synthesised the Erhebungs Theorie,
suggesting that volcanic and intrusive bodies were uplifted and inplaced at the semi-solid state
under the lifting force of high pressure underground forces.
Geological map of the western Dolomites,
after Von Buch (1822)
The controversy about the Predazzo magmatic centre attracted crowds of researcher to the area, making
the small local inn, the Nave d’Oro (Golden Ship), a central place for the development of the
European geological though, as recorded in its guest book geological drawings. It was to the restive
Venetian naturalist Giuseppe Marzari Pencati (1779-1836) to place the most severe round against
the neptunist interpretation, by referring (1819) the recrystallised band in the Anisian algae-rich
limestone, outcropping at the west of Predazzo (Canzoccoli Quarry), to the thermo-metamorphic
action of magmas.