A response to the ‘reassessment’ of the survey data from Capo Colonna, Italy
This response to the ‘reappraisal’ by Bartoli (2010) of the author’s original paper in this journal (2008) requires only a brief note. The subject of the discussion is the interpretation of stone formations discovered during one of RPM Nautical Foundation’s (RPMNF) surveys in Calabria, Italy. Over the past five years, Dr. Jean-Daniel Stanley, Senior Oceanographer and Director of the Deltas-Global Change Program, Smithsonian Institute, has conducted detailed geological research along the central Calabrian coast, including the Capo Colonna area. His team’s conclusions (Stanley et al., 2011) independently support the significant extent of coastal subduction and consequent relative sea-level rise around Capo Colonna which was put forward in the author’s 2008 article, as well as high levels of sedimentation build-up and seismic activity for this zone (see also Van Dijk, 1991; Zecchin et al., 2003). Consequently, the ideas offered in Bartoli’s reappraisal, as well as his dissertation (2008), are rendered moot, and a point-by-point rebuttal is unnecessary. The argument for numerous stone-carrier shipwrecks at Capo Colonna relied on an interpretation of data, including a reappraisal of that offered by the author, which did not take into account a rise in relative sea-level.
The Adriatic’s Uncharted Past