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.

ABSTRACT The Cretaceous and Paleogene pelagic limestone and marl formations of the Umbria-Marche Apennines of north-central Italy have proven to be exceptional recorders of the history of Earth and of life on Earth, and they have been the subject of numerous geological and paleontological studies over the last several decades. Founded a quarter century ago, in 1992, the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco is a research and teaching center focused on these exceptional rocks. This chapter is a historical introduction that briefly reviews the highlights of the lithologic, biostratigraphic, sedimentologic, magnetostratigraphic, impact-stratigraphic, geochemical, geochronological, time-scale, and cyclostratigraphical research done on the Umbria-Marche stratigraphic sequence, much of it facilitated by the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco. This review covers work up to the Coldigioco 25th anniversary Penrose conference in September 2017; it does not treat work presented at that conference or done since then. A remarkable irony is that a century ago, the Umbria-Marche Cretaceous–Paleogene sequence was so difficult to date that early work contained an error of ~35 m.y., but now there is a reasonable hope that this entire section may eventually be dated to an accuracy and precision of ~10,000 yr. This review begins with an homage to the little medieval city of Gubbio, its wild Festa dei Ceri, and its Bottaccione Gorge, where much of the research described here has been done. The review ends with three points of perspective. The first is the notion that sometimes geology can be done by looking up at the sky, and astronomy can be done by looking down at Earth, with much of the Coldigioco-based research being of this latter kind. The second is the observation that geology and paleontology are contributing far more new information to Big History—to our integrated knowledge of the past—than any other historical field in the humanities or sciences. The third is that three of the major scientific revolutions of geology in the twentieth century have direct connections to the Umbria-Marche stratigraphic sequence—the turbidite revolution, the development of plate tectonics, and the downfall of strict uniformitarianism.

ABSTRACT Stratigraphic analysis of two sections of a fluvial strath terrace exposed on the left bank of the Esino River near the village of Trocchetti (province of Ancona, Marche region of central Italy), and the study of a large landslide located near the village of San Cristoforo, a few kilometers down valley from the Trocchetti fluvial terrace, provide evidence for two catastrophic environmental events, namely: (1) the aggradation on the riverbed of coarse, chaotic gravel due to a violent flashflood; and (2) the formation of a large ephemeral lake as the consequence of the landslide that barred the river channel at San Cristoforo. Archaeological and historical information about the lost Roman city of Tuficum , which was located just a kilometer upriver from the Trocchetti terrace, and ceramic artifacts found in the chaotic gravel unit, led us to the hypothesis that both the flashflood and the landslide were induced by the sudden, severe climate change of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (mid-sixth century to mid-seventh century CE).

ABSTRACT At present, the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Bartonian remains the only GSSP of the Paleogene System to be defined by the International Subcommission on Paleogene Stratigraphy (ISPS) and the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). Here, we present the results of an integrated, high-resolution study of calcareous plankton and benthic foraminifera biostratigraphy and a detailed magneto-, chemo-, and cyclostratigraphic analyses carried out through the upper Lutetian to the upper Priabonian pelagic sediments of the Bottaccione Gorge section near Gubbio, central Italy, to check its stratigraphic completeness and constrain in time the optimal interval for defining and positioning the GSSP for the base of the Bartonian Stage. The high-resolution and solid integrated stratigraphic framework established at Bottaccione confirmed the completeness of the section, which meets the ICS recommendations for a potential designation as a GSSP for the base of the Bartonian Stage. Thus, the Bottaccione section was compared with the parastratotype section of the Bartonian in its type area, Alum Bay, UK. On this basis, two reliable criteria for defining and positioning the Bartonian GSSP at Bottaccione are provided: (1) the base of magnetic polarity chronozone C18r as the primary correlation criterion and (2) the base of the calcareous nannofossil Dictyococcites bisectus , which defines the CNE14/CNE15 zonal boundary as a secondary correlation criterion.

ABSTRACT The complete and well-studied pelagic carbonate successions from the Umbria-Marche basin (Italy) permit the study of the event-rich stratigraphic interval around the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (e.g., Deccan volcanism, boundary impact, Paleocene recovery, and climate). To test the robustness of various proxy records (bulk carbonate δ 13 C, δ 18 O, 87 Sr/ 86 Sr, and Ca, Fe, Sr, and Mn concentrations) inside the Umbria-Marche basin, several stratigraphically equivalent sections were investigated (Bottaccione Gorge, Contessa Highway, Fornaci East quarry, Frontale, Morello, and Petriccio core). Besides the classical Gubbio sections of Bottaccione and Contessa, the new Morello section is put forward as an alternative location for this stratigraphic interval because it is less altered by burial diagenesis. Elemental profiles (Ca, Fe, Sr, Mn) acquired by handheld X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) efficiently provide regional chemostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental information. The Deccan volcanism, the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, the characteristic pattern of the Sr/Ca profile across the boundary driven by the extinction and recovery of coccolithophores, and the Dan-C2 hyperthermal event are examples of such recorded paleoenvironmental events. Moreover, cyclostratigraphic analyses of proxies of detrital input (magnetic susceptibility and Fe concentrations) show the imprint in the sedimentary record of a 2.4 m.y. eccentricity minimum around 66.45–66.25 Ma, and suggest that the occurrence of the Dan-C2 hyperthermal event was astronomically paced.

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present old and new data about our integrated interdisciplinary stratigraphic study of sedimentary deposits preserved in the Grotta dei Baffoni Cave of the Frasassi hypogenic cave complex, including sedimentological, paleontological, archaeometric, and radiometric analyses. This research work allowed us to reconstruct the geologic, environmental, and human history of this part of the northeastern Apennines of Italy for the past 200,000 years, from the late Middle Pleistocene to the Present. Accumulation of alluvial sediment began in this cave ~200,000 years ago, when an entrance was breached by the Sentino River during its process of incision and deepening of the Frasassi Gorge coupled with regional tectonic uplift. Flooding of the cave went on until the entrance sill of the cave was lifted up to an elevation that could no longer be reached by the river, sometime in the mid–Late Pleistocene. After this, windblown dust (i.e., loess) and coarser carbonate clasts derived from the disintegration of the vaults due to cryogenic processes and/or seismically induced collapses of the limestone vaults, accumulated on this now-dry underground environment. The stratigraphy of an ~4-m-thick sedimentary deposit accumulated in the vast atrium room of the cave was measured, sampled, and documented in two excavation trenches in 1952 by archaeologist Anton Mario Radmilli. By collecting a dozen stratigraphically located osteological finds for 14 C dating, and revisiting artifacts collected by Radmilli, which are archived respectively in the Museum of Natural History of Verona and in the National Museum of Archaeology of Ancona, we assessed that the cave was frequented by wild animals, such as cave bear and ibex, starting in the mid–Late Pleistocene. Dating of charcoal particles from subsurface sediments in the inner part of the cave suggested that fires were lit in this cave by Epigravettian visitors during the Younger Dryas cold period. Scarce archaeological evidence nevertheless suggests that man began using this underground environment for worship practices probably in the early Neolithic. Human bones in the lower part of one of Radmilli's excavations yielded early Eneolithic ages. No other human bones were found in overlying levels of this excavation, but the typology of animal bones and associated ceramic artifacts, corroborated by our 14 C dates, suggest that this cave was utilized as a worship or ritual place until the early Middle Bronze Age. After that, the cave was sporadically used as a shelter for herders until recent times.

The Bottaccione Gorge at Gubbio, Italy, a source of many discoveries in Earth history, was first recognized as an outstanding geological section by Guido Bonarelli (1871–1951). Bonarelli is remembered today mainly for the meter-thick Bonarelli Level, the local manifestation of oceanic anoxic event 2 (OAE 2), which he first recognized and described. Setting aside Bonarelli’s long and distinguished career as a petroleum geologist in Borneo and Argentina, this paper concentrates on his role in the long and difficult effort to date the Scaglia rossa pelagic limestone of the Bottaccione Gorge and the surrounding Umbria-Marche Apennines. Old photographs show a barren Bottaccione Gorge a century ago; Bonarelli apparently had much better outcrops than we do today, after reforestation shortly before the middle of the twentieth century. In the absence of macrofossils, and with the inability to extract isolated foraminifera from these hard limestones, the Scaglia was dated indirectly in the late nineteenth century, and believed to be entirely of Cretaceous age, implying errors as great as 40 m.y. We can now understand why this dating seemed satisfactory at the time, because it did not conflict with Charles Lyell’s view that there should be a huge hiatus corresponding to a major faunal overturn like the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, and because thrust faulting that contradicted it had not yet been discovered. The K-Pg boundary was correctly placed within the Scaglia in 1936 when Otto Renz identified the foraminifera in thin section. Renz wrote with pleasure of a field trip with Bonarelli, who later presented Renz’s new dating to the Società Geologica Italiana on a 1940 field trip to Gubbio. These two are the predecessors of all the geologists who have worked in the Bottaccione Gorge since the Second World War.

We studied a high-resolution multiproxy data set, including magnetic susceptibility (MS), CaCO 3 content, and stable isotopes (δ 18 O and δ 13 C), from the stratigraphic interval covering the uppermost Maastrichtian and the lower Danian, represented by the pelagic limestones of the Scaglia Rossa Formation continuously exposed in the classic sections of the Bottaccione Gorge and the Contessa Highway near Gubbio, Italy. Variations in all the proxy series are periodic and reflect astronomically forced climate changes (i.e., Milankovitch cycles). In particular, the MS proxy reflects variations in the terrigenous dust input in this pelagic, deep-marine environment. We speculate that the dust is mainly eolian in origin and that the availability and transport of dust are influenced by variations in the vegetation cover on the Maastrichtian-Paleocene African or Asian zone, which were respectively located at tropical to subtropical latitudes to the south or far to the east of the western Tethyan Umbria-Marche Basin, and were characterized by monsoonal circulation. The dynamics of monsoonal circulation are known to be strongly dependent on precession-driven and obliquity-driven changes in insolation. We propose that a threshold mechanism in the vegetation coverage may explain eccentricity-related periodicities in the terrigenous eolian dust input. Other mechanisms, both oceanic and terrestrial, that depend on the precession amplitude modulated by eccentricity, can be evoked together with the variation of dust influx in the western Tethys to explain the detected eccentricity periodicity in the δ 13 C record. Our interpretations of the δ 18 O and MS records suggest a warming event ~400 k.y. prior to the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, and a period of climatic and environmental instability in the earliest Danian. Based on these multiproxy phase relationships, we propose an astronomical tuning for these sections; this leads us to an estimate of the timing and duration of several late Maastrichtian and Danian biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic events.

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present a case study to demonstrate the potential of photogrammetry in cyclostratigraphic applications. To this end, we considered an ~300-m-thick section exposing the Lower Jurassic Calcare Massiccio Formation in the Marche Apennines of central Italy. The Calcare Massiccio comprises a thick succession of peritidal shallow-water carbonates displaying a prominent sedimentary cyclicity, where supratidal and subtidal facies alternate. The section investigated in this study is exposed on the wall of an active quarry and is almost completely inaccessible because it is vertical and because of safety and liability regulations. This setting prevents the application of standard sampling and facies analysis techniques on the whole series. An accurate three-dimensional model of the quarry wall was therefore produced by processing ~360 digital images through photogrammetry and generating a high-resolution (centimeter-scale) point cloud of the outcrop with red-green-blue (RGB) values associated with each point. An ~150-m-long log representing color variations on a continuous portion of the exposed succession was then extracted from the point cloud by converting the original RGB values to grayscale values. The main facies were directly investigated in an ~10-m-long accessible section that was logged and sampled, and it was established that supratidal facies with planar stromatolites and teepee structures are darker in color, while subtidal facies, made of bioturbated mudstones to floatstones with gastropods and oncoids, display lighter color. This provided ground-truth data with which to interpret the grayscale variations in terms of facies alternations. Time-series analysis was then carried out on the grayscale series, and this revealed prominent cyclicities. Because the biochronostratigraphic framework of the Calcare Massiccio is poor, the potential orbital origin of these frequencies was tested with the average spectral misfit technique. Preliminary results suggest that the observed spectral features are compatible with Milankovitch periods and that astronomical forcing might have been a major driver in the deposition of the Calcare Massiccio Formation. Furthermore, they testify to the great potential of photogrammetry in cyclostratigraphic applications, especially when large-scale, inaccessible outcrops have to be investigated.

ABSTRACT The formation of the “expansion breccia” observed in the Lower Cretaceous Maiolica limestone in the Umbria-Marches region of Italy is attributable to a fluid-assisted brecciation process that occurred during the late Miocene exhumation of the Northern Apennines. The hydrothermal fluids probably originated as brine solutions trapped in the Burano anhydrite while it was in a plastic state. The migration of the Burano from the plastic to the brittle domain during unroofing resulted in liberation and injection of over-pressured hydrothermal fluids into the overlying limestone, causing hydraulic fracturing. Mapping of breccia morphology along a 400-m transect showed structures produced by different flow regimes, with chaotic and mosaic breccia characterizing the core parts of the section and mineral-filled fractures and veins in the margins. Based on the clast size in the chaotic breccia, the estimated velocities for fluidizing the aggregates of clasts and sustaining the clasts in suspension are, respectively, 15 cm/s and 65 cm/s. Crack growth was probably the main mechanism for the fragmentation of the limestone. Explosion fracturing patterns were only sporadically observed in the breccia, indicating substantial heat loss of the over-pressured fluids during their ascent to the Earth’s surface.

ABSTRACT The geometry of collisional mountain belts, which were formed at the expense of passive continental margins, is often complex because orogenic structures, such as thrusts and related folds, commonly interfere with pre-orogenic extensional structures, namely, normal faults, resulting in kinematically complex, composite structural assemblages. In these settings, analysis of the relationships between depositional and structural features may provide very useful tools to correctly unravel the local sedimentary and deformational history and relative ages of structures. Analysis of the relationships between minor normal faults and slumps near Frontale in the Umbria-Marche Apennines of Italy made it possible to correctly unravel the local chronology of events and hence to infer the depositional and deformation history of a part of the Upper Cretaceous–Paleogene Scaglia Rossa Formation pelagic basin. The results of this investigation made it possible to ascribe the normal faults to events that predate the construction of the Umbria-Marche mountain belt. Therefore, the normal faults at Frontale are distinct from those that overprint the main compressional structures responsible for the present-day seismicity of central Italy.

The Contessa Valley and the Bottaccione Gorge located close to Gubbio (central Italy) include some of the most complete successions of Paleogene sediments known from the Tethyan realm. Owing to the continuous deposition in a pelagic setting, a rather modest tectonic overprint, and the availability of excellent age control through magnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, chronostratigraphy, and tephrostratigraphy, and direct radioisotopic dates from interbedded volcaniclastic layers, these sediments have played a prominent role in the establishment of standard Paleogene time scales. We present here a complete and well-preserved Paleogene pelagic composite succession of the Gubbio area that provides the means for a more accurate and precise calibration of the Paleogene time scale. As a necessary step toward the compilation of a more robust database on a wide scale so to improve the magnetostratigraphic, biostratigraphic, and chronostratigraphic framework of the classical Tethyan zonations, enabling regional and supraregional correlations, we have constructed a record of reliable Paleogene planktonic foraminifera, calcareous nannofossil, and dinocyst biohorizons commonly used in tropical to subtropical Cenozoic zonations. In addition, an age model is provided for the Paleogene pelagic composite succession based on magnetostratigraphy, planktonic foraminifera, calcareous nannofossils, and dinocysts that contributes to an integrated chronology for the Paleogene Tethyan sediments from 66 to 23 Ma.

We present the results of integrated biostratigraphic (planktonic foraminifera, calcareous nannofossils, and dinoflagellates), magnetostratigraphic, and cyclostratigraphic analyses of the lower part of Monte Cagnero section (Umbria-Marche Apennines of Italy), a continuous and complete succession of pelagic limestone and marls that provides the means for an accurate and precise astrochronologic calibration of the Eocene-Oligocene transition. This 38.5-m-thick section overlaps the Oligocene section, which, at meter level 188, contains the Rupelian-Chattian boundary corresponding to the O4-O5 planktonic foraminiferal zonal boundary within the upper half of magnetochron C10n. The Eocene-Oligocene boundary at Monte Cagnero, as defined by the last occurrence of hantkeninid planktonic foraminifers (E14-E15 zonal boundary), is found at meter level 114.1, in the upper part of calcareous nannofossil zone CP16a, and very near the Aal-Gse dinocyst zonal boundary. Paleomagnetic analysis has identified all the magnetic reversals from the lower C13r to the lower C12n, precisely overlapping the base of the Oligocene magnetostratigraphic succession and placing the Eocene-Oligocene boundary in the upper part of C13r, in full agreement with the global stratotype section and point (GSSP) at Massignano. Spectral analysis of calcium carbonate data from bulk samples, collected at 5 cm intervals, indicates that orbital forcing of depositional cycles (i.e., limestone versus marl alternations) is dominant at frequencies corresponding to the theoretical astronomical curves of eccentricity, obliquity, and precessional cycles throughout the studied Eocene-Oligocene transition. Correlation with the astrochronologic time scale allows an age assignment of 33.95 Ma for the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, which is in close agreement with the astrochronologic age for the boundary in the GSSP of Massignano obtained in a similar study by R.E. Brown and colleagues in this volume. Thus, the Monte Cagnero section represents a candidate parastratotype for the Eocene-Oligocene GSSP of Massignano in the eventuality that the oxygen and carbon stable isotope shifts defining the oxygen isotope Oi-1 glaciation will be preferred over the last occurrence of hantkeninids as marker for the boundary, since, at Massignano, the beginning of this isotope shift is barely represented in the uppermost part of the exposed section. The excellent integrated stratigraphic framework of Monte Cagnero presented here will significantly facilitate further high-resolution isotope and paleoecological studies across the time of transition from a hothouse to icehouse Earth.

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 the fragments would surely have fallen to the bottom of the cavity, but probably by multiple small expansion events, each followed by calcite deposition in the small voids that opened up. The breccia sometimes occurs in dramatic topographic walls, a few tens of meters in both width and height, although there is not a one-to-one correspondence between breccia and walls. The sparry-calcite fill indicates that water with dissolved CO 2 was involved in formation of the breccias, presumably providing the high fluid pressure that forced the fragments apart. The breccia is bounded stratigraphically above by the middle Cretaceous Marne a Fucoidi (Fucoid marls), which appears to represent an aquiclude that limited the volume of high fluid pressure ( P F ). Although the mechanism of formation of the expansion breccias is not yet clear, we list observations that need to be accounted for by such a mechanism and discuss how these observations might be explained.

ABSTRACT In this study, we discuss the results from different luminescence dating methods applied to four samples of Pleistocene slack-water sediments from the Frasassi hypogenic cave system, in the northeastern Apennines of Italy. Two samples came from a well-sorted, fine sand deposit in the Grotta Grande del Vento cave (SDS site), while two others were taken from a borehole through a clayey deposit in the adjacent Caverna del Carbone cave (CDC site). Both sites are located at an elevation of ~235 m above sea level (asl), which corresponds to ~30 m above the thalweg of the Sentino River flowing through the Frasassi Gorge outside the cave. In the Frasassi multistory cave system, the elevation of 235 ± 5 m asl corresponds to the third karst level or “floor,” the minimum age of which from speleothem U-Th dating is ca. 130 ± 15 ka. The luminescence ages for the two samples from the SDS site are in good agreement with each other within error, just like the two samples from the CDC profile. Different luminescence dating protocols were used to determine the ages for each individual sample. By applying this comparative approach, and taking the luminescence characteristics of the samples into consideration (quartz optically stimulated luminescence, different feldspar luminescence signals), the ages could be based on the most robust measurement protocol. The ages presented here were all derived from measurements using the post-infrared infrared signal of potassium-rich feldspar stimulated at a temperature of 225 °C (pIRIR225). Incomplete bleaching of the luminescence signal prior to deposition, leading to age overestimation when not detected and corrected for, was not a significant factor for the samples under investigation, because ages calculated for luminescence signals with different bleachability yielded results in agreement within error. Bleaching can therefore be assumed to have been sufficient before the samples entered the cave system. The ages determined for both sites are reliable from a methodological standpoint. The pIRIR225 luminescence dates from the SDS sand range between 129 and 101 ka and are consistent with the minimum age for the third cave floor (~235 m asl) as obtained from previous U-Th dating. In contrast, the pIRIR225 luminescence dates obtained from the clay-rich CDC deposit range from 217 to 158 ka, which is consistent with the minimum age for the fifth subhorizontal cave level when measured from the modern water table, found at ~65 m above the present river thalweg. This apparent discrepancy may be due to the fact that the present entrance of the CDC cave was incised by the river on the south side of Frasassi Gorge sometime during the Eemian interglacial period (marine isotope stage [MIS] 5e), but, being part of a hypogenic karst system in an uplifting tectonic structure, the actual third floor was preexisting, thus anteceding the river incision. On the other hand, the fifth floor of the cave system, some 30 m above the third floor, was incised sometime during the interglacial MIS 7 at around 200 ka, at a time when the saturated phreatic third floor had already been formed and thus was capable of collecting the fine suspension sediment settling from muddy river water flooding the cave.

The highest stages of the stratigraphic range of the planktonic foraminiferal Rotalipora cushmani were investigated in a 313-k.y.-long interval of the classical Tethyan Bottaccione section (Gubbio, Italy), the type locality of the C org- rich Bonarelli Level, which is the sedimentary expression of the worldwide latest Cenomanian oceanic anoxic event 2 (OAE 2).The disappearance of R. cushmani is associated with the major turnover of marine microfauna and microflora that involves both planktonic and benthic foraminifera, and calcareous nannofossils, slightly before the onset of OAE 2, which, according to current available data, was triggered by a massive pulse of submarine mafic volcanism accompanying the initial emplacement of the Caribbean large igneous province (CLIP). This pulse of volcanic activity probably turned the climate in a strengthened greenhouse mode, accelerating continental weathering and increasing nutrient supply in oceanic surface waters via river runoff and triggering higher fertility in the global ocean. Our investigation shows that the marine biotic turnover started ~55 k.y. before the onset of OAE 2 and is closely coeval with the first major episode, as recorded by the unradiogenic trend in 187 Os/ 188 Os, of the ongoing magmatic activity of the CLIP, which produced increasing p CO 2 , ocean dissolution and/or acidification with a severe carbonate crisis and fertilization through enormous quantities of biolimiting metals. The marine microfauna and microflora reacted rapidly to new conditions of higher p CO 2 and fertility by undergoing marked changes following three main steps. We evaluate this pattern and postulate that the first pulse of volcanogenic CO 2 from the CLIP emplacement (ca. 94.2 or 94.6 Ma) played a fundamental role in the marine biotic turnover recorded shortly before the onset of OAE 2 and notably in the local or regional disappearance of R. cushmani in the central-western Tethys.

ABSTRACT As the wife and field assistant of geologist Walter Alvarez for the past 56 years, I have shared in adventures on five different continents. The quest to explore the history of our planet has given us insight and understanding of human history and culture as well. From the semi-arid Guajira desert of Colombia to the network of bike paths in Holland, to witnessing the September 1969 Revolution in Libya, from living in a medieval Italian hill town, visiting the Silk Road cities in Soviet Central Asia, participating in the plate tectonic revolution, helping found the Geological Observatory of Coldigioco, and continuing in the stimulating environment of the University of California, Berkeley, our lives have been rich in experiences. Linking it all together reminds us of the nearly infinite number of contingencies and decisions that shape each of our lives and contribute to our shared human history.