Grotta del Vento

About 200 million years ago, enormous quantities of shells, coral formations, fish skeletons, sands, slush and calcium carbonate began to settle on the bottom of a sea that we could match to today's Tyrrhenian Sea. This debris, although in different quantities and formations, continued to pile up, layer upon layer, for at least 170 million years, forming a mass at least thousands of metres thick. The enormous weight of this buildup caused compression and cementation of the different elements, slowly transforming it into limestone.

Around twenty million years ago, strong pressures (orogenetic movements), linked to the continental drift, caused the uplift of this rock mass, which, fracturing intensely due to the powerful stress received, emerged from the sea and slowly formed the present-day mountains.