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Historical Marine Levels in South Italy

Abstract

IN Nature of January 21, 1904, there appeared an article on “Earth Movements in the Bay of Naples”, by my father, Dr. Robert T. Gunther. This described his survey of historical marine levels along the Roman foreshore of Posilipo, in the Bay of Naples, extending into the Gulf of Pozzuoli. The implications of this work applied to the Italian coast-line as a whole. A subsidiary conclusion was that the fall of land level in the last centuries of the Roman Empire, increasing the swamps in the lower lying regions such as the Pontine Marshes and the Plain of Paestum, can have been responsible for the increase of malaria and so to the decline in the energy of the population.

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References

  1. de Lorenzo, G., Rend. Acc. Lincei, Cl. Sci. fis. s 6a (Serie Sesta), 11, 1062 (1930).

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  2. Gunther, R. T., Geog. J. (Aug.–Sept., 1903).

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GUNTHER, A. Historical Marine Levels in South Italy. Nature 201, 909–910 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1038/201909b0

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