@article{3070761,
    title = "Geomorphological study and paleogeographic evolution of NW Kefalonia Island, Greece, concerning the hypothesis of a possible location of the Homeric Ithaca",
    author = "Gaki-Papanastassiou, K. and Maroukian, H. and Karymbalis, E. and Papanastassiou, D.",
    journal = "Special Paper of the Geological Society of America",
    year = "2011",
    volume = "476",
    pages = "69-79",
    publisher = "Geological Society of America",
    doi = "10.1130/2011.2476(06)",
    keywords = "Antennas;  Climate change;  Geology;  Information use;  Mapping, Aerial Photographs;  Digital terrain model;  Field observations;  Formation and evolutions;  Geological mapping;  Geomorphological mapping;  Geomorphological studies;  Mediterranean climates, Landforms, database;  digital terrain model;  geological mapping;  geomorphology;  GIS;  Holocene;  landscape evolution;  landslide;  paleogeography, Cephalonia [Ionian Islands];  Greece;  Ionian Islands",
    abstract = "In the past two centuries, several researchers, based on different interpretations of the Homeric poems, have proposed that the ancient homeland of Odysseus may not have been the present Ithaca Island in the Ionian Sea but somewhere else. Among them, there is the opinion that the Homeric Ithaca was the western part of Kefalonia Island, the Paliki peninsula, separated at that time from the main island by a channel. The aim of this study is to verify, based on geological and geomorphological field observations, the existence of the proposed "channel" during the Homeric era, and its fi lling by a series of landslides originating from the eastern mountains, and to determine the paleogeographic evolution of the study area in the late Holocene. Detailed geological and geomorphological mapping was performed focusing on different landforms of fluvial origin, slope changes, planation and depositional surfaces, karst features, mass wasting features, and faults. Topographic diagrams and maps, aerial photographs, and satellite images were used, accompanied by extensive fi eldwork. For the geological mapping, field observations were combined with previous works. A spatial database derived from the aforementioned material and work was constructed using geographic information system (GIS) techniques. A digital terrain model (DTM) of the study region was also created. All the geological and geomorphological evidence refutes the hypothesis for the existence of a channel in NW Kefalonia. Moreover, there is a serious discordance in the time period needed for the formation and evolution of the landscape, considering the rock type and the Mediterranean climate of the area. © 2011 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved."
}