The Torvol Accessories

They are gorges up to 25 meters high and 2 meters wide in the narrowest points and 4-5 meters in the widest points. The natural canyon is dug over thousands of years by the water that has gradually brought to light the lava body, with typical vertical cracks [1]. The Alcantara river flows between lava stone which forms its characteristic riverbed. On the territory of Motta Camastra in the locality of Fondaco Motta is the most impressive and famous gorge of the Alcantara, more than 6 km long and easily accessible for the first 3. The peculiarity of this gorge consists in the structure of the walls, created by basaltic lava flows (poor in silicon but rich in iron, magnesium and calcium). The lava then cooled very quickly creating pentagonal and hexagonal prismatic shapes, which recall the molecular structure of the materials that constitute it. The appearance of the river in the section of the Gorges is believed to date back to the magma flows of the last 8,000 years. The most recent theses identify three successive flows from cracks and openings in the area of ​​Monte Dolce, in the lower-middle Etna side; the flows overlapped along the left wall of the river. The ancient flow is the one that reached most of Capo Schisò, on the sea. The columnar basalts visible in the Gorges are those of the less ancient flow and the product of the rapid cooling caused by the presence of river water; they form prismatic structures of different configurations, like a "stack", a "harp", with a radial course. The vertical formations, "organ pipe" in some cases the 30 m [2]