Salsa of Regnano

Accessibility:
From Viano, it's 7 km away, it can be reached taking the SP 89.
From Castelnovo ne' Monti you take the SS 63 up to Casina, where you take the SP 63.
From Vezzano sul Crostolo you take the SS 63 up to La Vecchia, where you continue on the SP 74 and 63.
From Carpineti follow the SP 98 up to Viano.
From Albinea go up on the SP 63.

Tourist Area
Matildic zone

Geographic Area
Apennines

Description:
It is the largest and best known in the Reggiano territory, perhaps surpassed in all of Emilia, by extension and activity, only by those of Nirano (in the Modena jurisdiction): it is found on the top part of a slope which facing east, makes the mud flow in that direction. As is known, the phenomenon is due to uprisings from great depths (some of them, hundreds of meters), along complex faults, of water mixed with gas (especially methane, but also hydrogen sulfate) and other hydrocarbons (traces of bitumen and petroleum are quite frequent). Thus during the day we find in the form of mud, the clay of one of the many Eocene mixes surfacing in the hole and once included in the so-called "flake clays": the presence of salts, for the most part sodium and potassium chlorides, derives from the fact that these clays were deposited in a marine environment. The causative connection between salse and hydrocarbons deposits is to be highlighted, as the latter are drying up due to small cracks in the water-proof (clay-like) surface because of tectonic movements; Also a good part of the uprising waters are not vadose (of infiltrations in the soil after precipitations), but fossils: they were in fact trapped in the sediment during its deposition and in the area of petroleum deposits, are found because of thicker density under rocks impregnated with hydrocarbons.
Therefore, seeing as the salse have nothing to do with volcanic phenomena, the mud emitted is "cold", that is their temperature is similar to the outside environment: seeing as the underground temperature is more constant during a year than that of the surface, they are only a little more fresh in the summer and relatively warmish in the winter. The activity which was greater in the past, has decreased especially in this last century, but at times is quite remarkable, so much so that the lutivome mouths assume a cone trunk shape and the relative flows remain for a certain time in relief compared to the country floor, until they are washed away by the rain. Even if they have a "cone" shape they are ephemeral, changing in terms of number, shape and position as time goes on, the apical location of the salsa remains substantially stable, at least in historical times (there are traces of a much more extensive Paleo-salsa, which also involved the opposite side of the dividing line between Regnano and Fondiano, dating back to at least the beginning of the Holocene or more probably to the Pleistocene).
The area, finally, is particularly important from a floristic point of view, as it has interesting miolophia vegetation along the salted mud canals; the vegetal combination is made up of mainly Agropyron pungens and Atriplex patula angustifilia with the presence of Polygon aviculare, Cynodon dactylon, Aster linosyris, while more rare and limited to the peak you can find Invula viscosa.
Contrary to other less active Emilian salse, which are often upset by aerations the Regnano salse is not subject to agricultural practices; its vicinity to the inhabited center and its notoriety have caused a few problems, such as visitors who leave all kinds of garbage on the site.
(New Nature Guide of the Reggiano Territory)