250 Million Years of Earth History in Central Italy: Celebrating 25 Years of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco

Central Italy has been a cradle of geology for centuries. For more than 100 years, studies at the Umbria and Marche Apennines have led to new ideas and a better understanding of the past, such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary event, or the events across the Eocene-Oligocene transition from a greenhouse to an icehouse world. The Umbria-Marche Apennines are entirely made of marine sedimentary rocks, representing a continuous record of the geotectonic evolution of an epeiric sea from the Early Triassic to the Pleistocene. The book includes reviews and original research works accomplished with the support of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco, an independent research and educational center, which was founded in an abandoned medieval hamlet near Apiro in 1992.
Expansion breccias in Lower Cretaceous Apennine pelagic limestones: I. Geological observations
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Published:September 11, 2019
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CiteCitation
Walter Alvarez*, Joke Belza, Lung S. Chan, Philippe Claeys, Peter Geiser, Marco Menichetti, David H. Shimabukuro, Enrico Tavarnelli, 2019. "Expansion breccias in Lower Cretaceous Apennine pelagic limestones: I. Geological observations", 250 Million Years of Earth History in Central Italy: Celebrating 25 Years of the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco, Christian Koeberl, David M. Bice
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ABSTRACT
Breccias affecting the pelagic Lower Cretaceous Maiolica limestone of the Umbria-Marche Apennines of central Italy contain 10-cm-diameter to submillimeter angular clasts of white pelagic limestone and black chert, separated by a filling of sparry calcite. The clasts can often be seen to have originally fitted together, indicating extension without shear, and this is the case in all three dimensions, arguing for roughly isotropic volumetric expansion. Breccia fragments are separated by sparry calcite bodies comparable in width to the fragments; this shows that the breccias were not formed by collapse, or by a single large explosion, after either of which...
- Apennines
- breccia
- calcite
- carbonate rocks
- carbonates
- chemical composition
- clastic rocks
- Cretaceous
- depositional environment
- Europe
- faults
- fluid flow
- host rocks
- isotopes
- Italy
- limestone
- Lower Cretaceous
- marl
- Mesozoic
- pelagic environment
- sedimentary rocks
- Southern Europe
- tectonic breccia
- Calcare Massiccio Formation
- Maiolica Formation