ABSTRACT We present the results of a compositional characterization study of amphorae from the ancient Greek town of Pharos, today Stari Grad, on the island of Hvar, in central Dalmatia, Croatia. The aim of the study was to identify the provenance of amphorae unearthed in Pharos, to determine the locally produced amphorae, and to identify the provenance of imported amphorae with a scientific-based approach, using optical thin-section petrography and bulk geochemical analysis by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence on 19 samples of different types of amphorae and reference materials. The results of the analyses allowed us to identify a group of imported amphorae from Corinth or Corfu and a group of imported amphorae from southern Italy, probably from Calabria. We were also able to identify a third group of imported amphorae from an as-yet-unknown provenance/workshop. Finally, according to the geochemical composition and close match with the reference material, namely, kitchenware, only two amphorae from the examined collection could be identified as local products. The results of the compositional characterization of amphorae from Pharos show us that an ancient Greek town had trade contacts beyond the Adriatic-Ionian region, and they provide opportunities for further studies of ancient amphorae production and circulation in this part of the Mediterranean.

ABSTRACT In this paper, we review ~140 yr of investigations about pelagosite, a usually black aragonitic encrustation with a vitreous luster that forms in the splash zone of Mediterranean rocky coasts. Prior to the mid-1920s, the geologic community considered pelagosite to be a separate mineral of uncertain composition, but then in 1926, Italian mineralogist Ettore Onorato determined that pelagosite has the same structure as aragonite (orthorhombic CaCO 3 ), and also that it contained cells of blue-green algae (i.e., cyanobacteria). Once pelagosite was declassed from the status of a mineral, and its name was eliminated from catalogues and textbooks, Onorato’s documentation of the cyanobacterial cells contained in this encrustation seems to have fallen into almost total oblivion during the rest of the twentieth century. We revisited pelagosite in its original type locality, the remote southern Adriatic island of Pelagosa (today’s Croatian island of Palagruža), as well as in the Dalmatian island of Hvar. Using modern analytical methods and techniques, we redefined the mineralogical and geochemical composition of pelagosite, the nature and significance of its microbial content, and the origin of its pisolitic “tree-ring” internal structure, which probably reflects cyclic climate changes.

Abstract A strong and potentially dangerous decreasing trend in the level of water in Vrana Lake over the last three decades was analysed. This freshwater lake is a unique karst hydrology feature located on the small Adriatic island of Cres (405.71 km 2 ), which is entirely composed of carbonate rocks. The lake is situated in a large cryptodepression and its base reaches a depth of 61.3 m below mean sea-level. The lake is a complex hydrological–hydrogeological system with an average water volume of c. 220 × 10 6 m 3 . The larger geographical region has been affected by an increase in air temperature over the last c. 40 years. This exceptionally clean freshwater lake is the only source of potable water for the whole Cres archipelago. A dangerous drop in the water level of the lake started in 1983. This decreasing trend is driven by both global climate change and anthropogenic (the overexploitation of water) factors.

Soft-sediment deformation structures crop out in the Lower Cretaceous succession of the Gubbio anticline in the Umbria-Marche Apennines of Italy. The deformation interval is ~13 m thick and occurs between the upper Hauterivian–lower Aptian Maiolica Formation and the Aptian Marne a Fucoidi Formation. It can be observed along the anticline for a distance of 12 km. Different types of deformation structures are distributed in several outcrops, with detachment extensional structures prevailing in the southeast sector. Imbricated slides, slump structures, and chaotic layers are distributed vertically and longitudinally in the middle and/or lower part of the deformed sediments. In the northwest sector of the anticline, compressional duplex structures can be considered the lower section of a large sediment failure. Geometrical and kinematic analysis of the fold axis trends and sliding surfaces have led to infer a single, large gravitational event possibly Albian in age. The synsedimentary deformation could be activated by several internal trigger mechanisms induced by external regional tectonic events such as earthquakes. An orthogonal system of calcite veins crossing the limestone layers represents the primary pathway for fluid-driven breaching of joint seals. These fluids can be related to the significant increase in the total organic carbon in the Hauterivian–Aptian layer of the Maiolica and Marne a Fucoidi Formations. This suggests the possibility that the limestone layer, sandwiched and sealed between clay of the organic-rich black shales, could have favored a pore pressure increase approaching lithostatic stress. With a thin overburden, lithostatic stress is more easily reached at low hydrostatic pressure. This slump sheet occurrence suggests the existence of a local paleoslope dipping toward the north-northwest, where the mass involved in the deformation is distributed over an estimated area of 60 km 2 for a volume of 0.8 km 3 of displaced sediments. The restoration and rotation of the slump fold hinges to the Early Cretaceous direction, in line with available paleomagnetic data, have shown that the strike of the slope corresponds to the main trend of the oldest Jurassic extensional lineaments and is linked to transform faults of the westernmost Tethys rifting systems.

We investigated the petrogenetic characteristics of the Paleogene Veneto volcanic province and compared them with other intraplate magmatic occurrences of the Adria–North Africa plate since Late Cretaceous time. Veneto volcanic province magmas were erupted through a transtensional rift system that resulted from intra-plate reactions to the Alpine collisional events. The lavas, mostly basic in composition, encompass a wide range of serial affinities from (mela)-nephelinites to quartz-normative tholeiites. Nephelinites and basanites often carry spinel-peridotite mantle xenoliths that have rheologic and thermobarometric characteristics that indicate an origin from the mechanical boundary layer at depths not exceeding 50–60 km. Incompatible element patterns of the most primitive Veneto magmas, together with their isotopic signature ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr 0.70315–0.70386; 143 Nd/ 144 Nd 0.51279–0.51298; 206 Pb/ 204 Pb 18.8–19.8), share geochemical characteristics with other magmatic occurrences of Adria–North Africa domains, and they show a clear affinity with intraplate sodic lavas, particularly HIMU (high U/Pb = high µ) and, to a lesser extent, enriched-mantle–ocean-island basalt (EM2-OIB) magmas. An integrated petrogenetic model, generally applicable for Adria–North Africa domains, suggests that most of the magmas were generated within the spinel-peridotite lithospheric mantle, from progressively deeper sources (30–100 km) and with a concomitant decrease in the degrees of partial melting (25%–3%) from quartz-normative tholeiites to nephelinites. The modeled magma sources invariably require enrichments in incompatible elements and metasomatic phases comparable (or equivalent) to those observed in some mantle xenoliths associated with the Veneto volcanic province lavas. Two kinds of mantle sources were identified: lherzolites bearing amphibole ± phlogopite for tholeiites to basanites, and lherzolites bearing amphibole ± phlogopite plus carbonatitic components for nephelinites. The elemental and isotopic characteristics of these mantle sources correspond to variable mixing of HIMU and, to a lesser extent, EM2 metasomatic components with a pristine depleted-mantle (DM) lithosphere. The HIMU metasomatizing agents may possibly be related to the mantle plume that is thought to extend from the eastern Atlantic to Europe and the Mediterranean, including Adria–North Africa domains, since the Late Cretaceous. These components more effectively accumulated in the lower lithospheric portion, i.e., the thermal boundary layer, whereas older metasomatic EM2 components may have been better preserved in the upper, more rigid, mechanical boundary layer.