The Historical and Iconographic Research in the Reconstruction of the Variation of the Calderone Glacier: State of the Art and Perspective

Abstract

The Calderone glacier is characterised by a reduction phase since the end of the “Little Ice Age” (LIA) Auct., particularly strong during the last decade. In fact during the nineties a set of multidisciplinary researches started to evaluate the role of the Glacier like an indicator of the effects of human activities and finally of regional and global climatic change. The apparatus is now confined into a deep mountain valley of the Gran Sasso d’Italia Range, with steep walls, and does not show movements along the borders and along the front. The aim of the historical research is not only the collection of the available images and literature, but mainly the evaluation and the evidence of the past dimension of the studied glacier in length, surface area, thickness and volume. In this paper the state of the art is presented, giving information about sources, consistence and importance of collected data. The documentation collected is proposed in the perspective of giving a contribution to the confirmation or to the discussion of the performed reconstructions.