Pliocene to Pleistocene palynoflora and vegetation in Italy: State of the art

Bioclimatic analysis of rodent palaeofaunas reveals severe climatic changes in Southwestern Europe during the Plio-Pleistocene

Quaternary disappearance of tree taxa from Southern Europe: timing and trends

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01806165/document

Climate changes in the central Mediterranean and Italian vegetation dynamics since the Pliocene

The flora and vegetation of Japan

Dunarobba and Pietrafitta are two outstanding fossil sites, which provide us with a glimpse on central Italian palaeoenvironments during two different time spans. The still poorly dated Dunarobba succession is framed, mainly on the basis of continental mollusc biochronology, within the Piacenzian-Gelasian interval, whereas the Pietrafitta one is reliably dated to the Calabrian thanks to vertebrate biochronology. Here we add several new palaeobotanical data for the two sites and we provide for the first time an overview of the stratigraphic, sedimentological, palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental results so-far obtained. We also review the palaeobotanical evidence concerning the neighbouring sites of Cava Toppetti I/II, Fosso Bianco, Torre Picchio and Villa San Faustino. On the basis of the available datasets we conclude that the Dunarobba Fossil Forest, with several large conifer trunks in upright position, was produced by an ancient swamp vegetation dominated by Glyptostrobus europaeus, and including few other woody (Alnus, Cephalanthus, Cornus) and herbaceous (Carex, Cladium, Schoenoplectus) plants. Rich water-transported fruit and seed assemblages and pollen data indicate that the well-drained palaeoenvironments around the Dunarobba palaeo-swamp were covered by a forest having a floristic affinity to the modern Mixed Mesophytic Forests of East Asia, as proved by the occurrence of Cryptomeria, Eurya, Sinomenium, etc. The disappearance of the Glyptostrobus swamp forest was due to the establishment of well-drained palaeoenvironmental conditions, testified by a

/pdf/the-plant-record-of-the-dunarobba-and-pietrafitta-sites-in-3s2kvby4h4.pdf

The plant record of the dunarobba and pietrafitta sites in the plio-pleistocene palaeoenvironmental context of central italy

Late pliocene vegetation and climate in Central Italy: High-resolution pollen analysis from the Fosso Bianco succession (Tiberino Basin)

The lowermost deposits of the Tiberino basin in Umbria are made of a continuous succession of deep lake clays, which were sampled in two outcrops for pollen and paleomagnetic analyses. The former sampling evidenced a gradual climatic deterioration followed by warmer/cooler fluctuations while the latter provided the magnetostratigraphic framework extending from the late Gauss chron to shortly after the Reunion sub-chron. The validity of the paleomagnetic analyses was based on good rock magnetic properties yielding a very stable magnetization related to the uniform clay lithology. Consequently the Tiberino basin sections were correlated to one another and to the sequence of the Upper Valdarno basin, about one hundred km to the North, also in agreement with their pollen contents. Pollen changes of both Tiberino and Upper Valdarno basins suggest climate conditions correlatable with those recorded at the global scale during the Middle and Late Pliocene.

Maria Rita Pontini

Papers

The plant record of the dunarobba and pietrafitta sites in the plio-pleistocene palaeoenvironmental context of central italy

Late pliocene vegetation and climate in Central Italy: High-resolution pollen analysis from the Fosso Bianco succession (Tiberino Basin)

Pollen record and magnetostratigrapy of the middle-late pliocene lacustrine sequence in the Tiberino basin (Central Italy)