Section 9 Calavese Upper Permian Italy (Permian of Italy)

Where: Italy (45.9° N, 12.0° E: paleocoordinates 1.6° S, 26.2° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Permian (298.9 - 252.2 Ma)

• Val Gardena Sandstone in the Bletterbach section was regarded as Uppermost Capitanian-Dzhulfian in age, while the Bellerophron formation was attributed to the Dorashamian-Changxingian.

•The Upper Permian succession of the Southern Alps displays the typical features of early rift successions. The overall pattern is that of transgressive, backstepping and onlapping arrangements of deposits suggesting a background of regional subsidence.

•Sedimentation started in graben-like depressions, and was initially fed by local sources. Later as a result of regional subsidence and morphogenetic evolution of the basin, the original depositional areas joined, ultimately resulting in an unified and increasingly expanded depression with sedimentary fill progressively onlapping the margins of the basin. Basin opening is recorded by coarse scree and alluvial fan deposits.

•The thickness of Val Gardena Sandstone in the study area ranges from zero ( Trento area ) to more than 500 m ( Comelico area ). In the Dolomites and Carnia, the red beds grade into the evaporitic and carbonate deposits of the Bellerophon Formation. The transgression progressively encroached on western areas. A structural high between the Adige Valley and the Giudicarie Line prevented the westward progression of the transgression, so that the Bellerophron Formation.

•The Upper Permian deposits of the eastern Southern Alps display the typical features of early rift successions: onset of sedimentation after a long period of subaerial erosion, and upward fining trend from red beds, trough evaporates to marine carbonates, with backstepping pattern of component sequences. These are though to be part of second order Upper Permian-Scythian rift-related sequence.

•Val Gardena sandstone and the Bellerophon Formation ( Upper Permian ) in the Dolomites and Carnia show an overall transgressive trend and record the transition from continental red-bed to marine sedimentation in an extensional tectonic setting. The eastward progression of the Bellephron transgression resulted in the diachrony of the boundary between Val Gardena Sandstone and Bellephron Formation. The transgression was actually punctuated by a series of cyclical pulsations, which resulted in complex interfingering of terrigenous, evaporitic and carbonate deposits and in the subdivisions of the sedimentary succession into a number of sequences. The various vacies are essentially contempareous and follow one another along a paleoslope gently inclined towards the east, so that the red beds grade basinwards (i.e. eastwards ) through sabkha and lagoonal deposits into marine carbonates

Environment/lithology:

Size class: microfossils

Preservation: cast, mold/impression, adpression, original carbon, original sporopollenin, original cellulose

Collection methods: core, chemical, mechanical,

Primary reference: F. Massari, C. Neri, P. Pittau, D. Fontana, and C. Stefani. 1994. Sedimentology, palynostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy of a continental to shallow-marine rift-related succession: Upper Permian of the eastern Southern Alps (Italy). Mem. Sci. Geol. 46:119-234 [C. Looy/W. Puijk/C. Looy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: paleoecologic analysis

PaleoDB collection 32196: authorized by Cindy Looy, entered by Wilma Puijk on 10.06.2003

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

unclassified
  -
Nuskoisporites
  -
Lycopodiopsida
 Selaginellales -
Alisporites
  -
Alisporites sp. Daugherty 1941
Falcisporites
  -
Klausipollenites
  -
Protohaploxypinus
  -
Lueckisporites
  -
Endosporites
  -
Monolete
  -
Concavisporites
  -
Concavisporites sp. Delcourt and Sprumont 1955
Pteridopsida
  -
Limitisporites
  -
 Coniferales - Podocarpaceae
Platysaccus sp. Naumova 1954 podocarp
Pinopsida
 Pinales - Taxaceae
Lunatisporites
  -
Sulcatisporites
  -
Sulcatisporites sp. Leschik 1955
 Life -