County of Sicily was created by Robert Guiscard in 1071 for his younger brother Roger Bosso. Guiscard himself had received the title Duke of Sicily ("dux Siciliae") in 1059 from Pope Nicholas II as encouragement to conquer it from the Muslims. In 1061 the first permanent Norman conquest (Messina) was made and in 1071, after the fall of Palermo, the capital of the emirate and future capital of the county, Guiscard invested Roger with the title of count and gave him full jurisdiction in the island save for half the city of Palermo, Messina, and the Val Demone, which he retained for himself.
Geology of Sicily well as the regional uplift of the Calabrian unit. The tectonic setting of Sicily is controlled by the rate of collision of the African plate and Eurasian plate and the rate of back rolling of the African plate. The tectonic history of Sicily can be divided into four main stages: During Late Triassic, the ancient Neotethys ocean was formed by a major continental rifting event and rapid tectonic subsidence. Traces of the tectonic event can be found at both the Hyblean plateau and western Sicily. After the rapid subsidence during Triassic to Early Jurassic, there was a slow thermal subsidence