Benthic foraminifers and siliceous sponge spicules assemblages in the Quaternary rhodolith rich sediments from Pontine Archipelago shelf

The bottom samples (Quaternary in age) of two cores (CS1 and Caro1) collected at 60 and 122 m water depth in the marine area near Ponza Island (Pontine Archipelago, Tyrrhenian Sea) are investigated. In particular, benthic foraminifers and siliceous sponge spicules are considered. The coralline red algae (pralines, boxworks and unattached branches) are abundant in both samples and, particularly, in the CS1 bottom as well as the benthic foraminifers. The siliceous sponge spicules also are very diversified and abundant in the CS1 bottom sample, while in the Caro1 bottom they are rare and fragmented. Benthic foraminiferal assemblage of two samples is dominated by Asterigerinata mamilla and Lobatula lobatula, typical epiphytic species but also able to live on circalittoral detrital seafloors, adapting to an epifaunal lifestyle. Based on these data the bottom of the studied cores represents the upper circalittoral zone, within the present-day depth limit distribution of coralline red algae in the Pontine Archipelago (shallower than 100 m water depth)

Geoethics: the responsibility of geoscientists in making society more aware of natural hazards

The damage due to geological hazards, with frequent loss of human lives, is not entirely avoidable, but can be greatly reduced through the correct land use that respects the natural processes, through prevention and mitigation efforts, through an effective and correct information to the population. Often not responsible behaviors by politicians, as well as the need for heavy investments and the lack of information make difficult the solution of problems and slow the path to a proper management of the environment, the only way to provide a significant mitigation of damages of the geological disasters. In many countries (including Italy) the importance of the Geoscientists’s role is not yet sufficiently recognized, despite it is evident the necessity of a greater attention to geological problems by policy makers and public opinion, as well as a more adequate information about natural risks to the society. The commitment to ensure prevention and mitigation of geological hazards must be considered an ethical value and duty for those who possess the appropriate knowledge and skills. Within the above context, Geoscientists have a key role to play as experts in analyzing and managing the territory’s vulnerability: they must take responsibility to share and communicate their knowledge more effectively with all private and public stakeholders involved, paying attention to providing balanced information about risks and addressing inevitable uncertainties in natural hazard mapping, assessment, warning, and forecasting. But Geoscientists need to be more aware of their ethical responsibility, of their social duty to serve the society, care about and protect territory, and to facilitate the desirable shift from a culture of emergency to a culture of prevention. The search for balance between short-term economic issues and wider social impacts from natural hazards is an increasingly urgent need. Geoethics must be central to society’s responses to natural hazard threats

Larger foraminifera: a key for the paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic interpretation of the Early Tertiary of Sardinia (Western Mediterranean)

The reconstruction of the geological history of Sardinia in Early Tertiary times is based on subsurface data from the lignite-bearing Sulcis basin, several scattered outcrops from Central-Southern Sardinia, and microfacies analysis of post-Eocene conglomerate clasts, which have been recently found and are as yet largely unpublished. These clasts testify to the extensive erosion of Paleocene-Eocene deposits, among which are also carbonate platform deposits, of which there is no remaining outcrop. In the lignitiferous Sulcis basin (Southeastern Sardinia), the late Thanetian transgression at the base of the lignite-bearing succession is characterized by orbitolitids and alveolinids. In Central-Eastern Sardinia, terrigenous and mixed deposits were formed during transgressive episodes in Early Eocene times, with Assilina-dominated facies in the early Ypresian of Southern Sardinia, and Nummulites-rich assemblages in central Eastern Sardinia near Orosei in the Late Ypresian. The conglomerate clasts, cropping out in several localities of SE Sardinia (Cuccuru’e Flores and the as yet unrecorded occurrences of Su Bandidu and Nurri), testify to the development of carbonate shallow-water environments rich in algae in the Early Paleocene, in the Thanetian and in the late Ypresian, and of larger foraminiferal deposits in the Ypresian. The inferred paleoenvironments and the transgressive-regressive successions are interpreted as a close analogue to the tectono-sedimentary history of the eastern Pyrenaic-Provençal region, thus confirming the position of Sardinia within this domain in the Early Tertiary. A comparison based on the shallow-marine larger foraminiferal record from this paleogeographic domain (which included Corsica, the Baleares and Calabria) allows a reconstruction of the paleobiogeographic and paleogeographic relationships of the northern part of the Western Mediterranean Neo-Tethys

The Paleocene of the Apulian area (central-eastern Italy)

[This publication has no abstract. It presents a concise summary of the larger foraminiferal biostratigraphy and paleoenvironmental settings of the Danian, Selandian, Thanetian and Ypresian deposits from the Apulian foreland, Central and Southern Italy.