About the Cover

The cover image shows a dislocation in one span of the now disused railway viaduct at Lagonegro, Basilicata, southern Italy (40° 07’ 08”N, 15° 45’ 58” E). This 200m long viaduct reaches a height of 76 m above a fault-controlled valley which it crosses with 6 main arches and some small sections at the southern end as beams, and runs between two tunnels in different parts of the Unità Lagronese (Triassic) at each end. It was constructed in reinforced concrete in c. 1915, but in 1952 and subsequently, deformations were experienced that led eventually to the closure of this part of the line, and later abandonment of the whole railway link. These deformations have been concentrated in one arch span (shown) at the northern end of the viaduct and not in the other arches. For the past half-century, the viaduct has stood as mute testimony to the nature of ground movements in this locality, which on the basis of mapping by Professor L. Coppola, appear to be movements of a massive olistolithic block of organogenic limestone at the north end of the viaduct.