The origin of the ionic coast it can be only understood if we keep account of " drift of the continent’s " theory worked out between 1910 and 1930, from the German geophysicist Wegener. According to that theory at the beginning of the Mesozoic (approximately 250 million years ago), the emerged lands were re-united in a gigantic super continent, the Pangea that, subsequently, was fallen in many islands, the clods that went away each other, pushed from the magma that flowed to the outside of existing deep fractures at the top of the oceanic backbones.

Since the fracture of the Medium-Atlantic backbone, South was increased more than North; Africa was subject to anticlockwise movement of drift that has pushed it to go up to Northwest and to collide against the Euro-Asian clod.

When two sods meet each other, if they have various nature, heaviest, usually the Oceanic of basaltic nature, it wedges under the Continental clod which is lighter because of its granitic form that sinking, by friction, it fuses itself, creating magma much viscous derived from the fusion of the Sial and with a phenomenon called sub-duction which creates volcanoes.

In the medium-inferior Pleistocene, approximately 600.000 - 500.000 years ago, nearly all the oriental Sicily was submerged by the sea and there was a wide gulf, said pre-Etneo that went towards Maletto and Randazzo and it separated the Ibleo plateau already emerged from the northern mountainous chains of the Peloritani. In such period, the push of the African continent against the Euro-Asian clod has caused, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, compression phenomena that have caused the sub-duction that has originated explosives volcanoes of Aeolian (Stromboli and Vulcano ones) and in the Ionian Sea, distension phenomena that they have carried to the formation of fractures in marine depth, from which it is come out magma from the mantle that is the fluid zone placed under the earthly crust.

“Cappellaccio” of marl on the Large Faraglione	“Cappellaccio” of marl on the Lachea island	Columnar basalts and organic rocks - Port of Acitrezza	Columnar basalts with organic cliffs at the bottom that shows the negative bradyseism	Particular of the “cappellaccio” of marl - the Lachea Island	Pillows in "Pietrazze"

The magma of basaltic nature and much fluid then, to contact with seawater have originated the pillows and the columnar basalts, the particular vulcanite that characterize the territory of Acitrezza that has been defined         " testimony of the ancient volcanic activity " and one of the rare localities of the world which in it is possible to find out species of this, with some of these monuments of the past that, in some part contacting with the Etna’s sub-aerial lave relatively recent, they exalt the morphologic-structural differences and contrasts. The union of all these natural elements, pillow-lave and columnar basalts, it forms something difficult to find not only in Sicily, nor in all Mediterranean Sea " (Official Sicilian Gazette, 19-O2-l994)".

In the past the depth of the pre-Etneo gulf was covered from a particular type of clay that the students have called Sicilian. Today it is found again around the pillows on the coast, the Lachea island and the Great Rock transformed in marl, because of the high temperature that has been subject to the contact with the magma. The area around the Large Faraglione is defined " Cappellaccio of marl ". The original clay is found again, instead, at the top of the Vamboleri Mount in the only zone of the territory that has been saved from the successive Etna’s eruptions. The African push has caused, moreover, the bradyseism that the zone is subject, because of our territory raises and it seems that in the past, it has been raised of approximately 8 metres.

Many proofs exist that show the bradyseism which zone is subject:

 1) On the lava flows that encircle the cliff have been recovered two platforms of marine abrasion at different heights: one about a meter from the sea level and the other one at 4 metres that is covered from the lava sub-aerial flow. At the bottom, the cliffs are submarine origin of; they are constituted from pillows, while at the top, the vulcanite ones they have been eructated from the Etna.  About these ones, the prof. Romolo Romano and Carmelo Sturiale has been able to determine their age; they said that the eruption that generated them has happened between 122 B.C. and 252-253 A.C., while, it was wrong what Platania had written in 1169.

2) On some coastal cliffs are present holes dug by “Litodomi”, molluscs that dig the cliff inside which they are insinuated emitting an acid secretion. Such holes can be observed to the inside of the cove at the north of the cliff, in the coves along the coast, on the Lachea island and the large Faraglione at 7-8 m on the level of the sea.

3) On the Vamboleri Mount (approximately 120 m on the level of the sea) are found, digging in the fossil clay of the ground of molluscs that lived in our seas in the Pleistocene. They have been found approximately 80 species.
4) On the Faraglioni of Acitrezza and on the “Faraglionelli”, in particular, they are present limestone incrustations of corals and worm at quite height from the level of the sea.

5) On the Vamboleri Mount, in cliffs scattered among the clays, you can find traces of marine abrasion, the so-called alveolar sculptures.