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HILLS
>> METALLIFEROUS
HILLS
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INTRODUCTION
The area of the Colline Metallifere is located between two
jewels of the Tuscan architecture, Volterra and Massa Marittima,
excellent examples of urbanism of the “comune period”,
surrounded by important Etruscan remains.
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landscape of the Colline Metallifere offers the visitor fascinating
views, wild panoramas and unique colours due to the minerals in the
underground. The mineral resources in around the Colline Metallifere,
gave name to this Tuscan corner and was in the past the main industrial
activity. Today mainly the boric-acid fumaroles are exploited from
where you get geothermic energy. The extraction of pyrite, copper,
zinc, and sulphurous lead was an important activity already during
the Etruscans, who based big part of its economical power around the
mineral extraction. The wood from the forests of the Colline Metallifere
fuelled the forges and the blacksmiths’ workshops. The extraction
activity only ceased relatively recently and today the forests are
protected and can not be exploited. The main activity now is the geothermic
energy. The area called the Valle del Diavolo (the Devil Valley),
which offers a unique landscape, is plotted boric fumaroles and “lakes”,
small holes with water from which natural gas bubbles up. In the centre
of the Valle del Diavolo, at Larderello, you find a big geothermic
central which collect and distributes the steam from the ground. |
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