Monte Arcosu is a mountain in the Sulcis massif, in southern

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. It has an elevation of . The mountain has a characteristically

truncated cone In geometry, a (from the Latin for "morsel"; plural: ''frusta'' or ''frustums'') is the portion of a Polyhedron, solid (normally a Pyramid (geometry), pyramid or a Cone (geometry), cone) that lies between two parallel planes cutting this soli ...

shape, resulting from the differential

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

which followed its formation during the

Variscan orogeny The Variscan or Hercynian orogeny was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Nomenclature The name ''Variscan'', comes f ...

. The massif is formed by a

graniti Graniti is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Messina in the Italian region Sicily, located about east of Palermo and about southwest of Messina. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,550 and an area of .All demographics an ...

intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

from the

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...

, lying on a

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

basement and in turn surmounted by Paleozoic scists. The Variscan orogeny removed the upper schist layer from all the massif's peaks but Monte Arcosu, modelling it and showing the granite along the steep slopes.

Sources

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Arcosu {{Sardinia-geo-stub