Terra rossa (soil)

This soil type typically occurs as a discontinuous layer that ranges from a few centimeters to several meters in thickness that covers limestone and dolomite bedrock in karst regions.

[5] The origin of terra rossa, its parent material, and its relationship to underlying limestones and dolomites has been greatly debated over recent decades by geologists, geomorphologists, and soil scientists.

Instead they propose that terra rossa is polygenetic in origin and that, depending on their geographic location, their parent material, which has been altered by pedogenesis, contains exotic sediments from volcanic ash; non-limestone and non-dolomite; and aeolian sources.

[11] The classification denotes red-coloured soils (sometimes called "red rendzinas") which develop in or on the karstic landscape of the limestones of the Miocene and earlier periods, as well as calcretes in regions where the modern Mediterranean climate is predominant.

The most accelerated development of red Mediterranean soils occurred from the Miocene to the Late Pleistocene, due to the large amount of climate fluctuation in those periods.