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.
Distribution of chrome-spinel grains across the 3He anomaly of the Tortonian Stage at the Monte dei Corvi section, Italy
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Published:September 11, 2019
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CiteCitation
Samuele Boschi*,†, Birger Schmitz†, Alessandro Montanari†, 2019. "Distribution of chrome-spinel grains across the 3He anomaly of the Tortonian Stage at the Monte dei Corvi section, Italy", 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
The present-day ocean-climate system configuration took shape during the Miocene Epoch. Toward the end of the epoch, in the late Tortonian at ca. 8.5 Ma, there was an exceptional event: collisional disruption of an >150-km-diameter asteroid, which created the Veritas family of asteroids in the asteroid belt. This event increased the flux of interplanetary dust particles rich in 3He to Earth and probably caused a period of increased dust in the atmosphere, with consequent alteration of global and local environmental conditions. A late Miocene 3He anomaly likely related to the Veritas event has been registered in deep-sea sediments from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 926 (Atlantic Ocean), ODP Site 757 (Indian Ocean), and in the late Tortonian–early Messinian Monte dei Corvi section near Ancona, Italy. Here, we report the results of a study in the Monte dei Corvi section aimed to recover extraterrestrial chrome-spinel grains across the 3He anomaly interval, as has been done for the similar late Eocene 3He anomaly in the nearby Massignano section. In this study, three ~100 kg samples were collected from the Monte dei Corvi section: two within the 3He peak interval and one outside the anomaly interval as a background reference sample. In total, 1151 chrome-spinel grains (>63 µm) were recovered, but based on chemical composition, none of the grains has a clear extraterrestrial origin. This supports the inference that the 3He anomaly is indeed related to the Veritas event and not to an approximately coeval breakup of a smaller H-chondritic body in the asteroid belt, an event registered in meteoritic cosmic-ray exposure ages. Spectral studies of the Veritas asteroids indicate that they are made up of carbonaceous chondritic material. Such meteorites generally have very low chrome-spinel concentrations in the grain-size range considered here, contrary to the very chromite-rich ordinary chondrites. The terrestrial grains recovered were classified, and their composition showed that all the grains have an ophiolitic origin with no substantial compositional and distributional change through the section. The source area of the terrestrial grains was probably the Dinarides orogen.
- Ancona Italy
- anomalies
- asteroid belts
- Atlantic Ocean
- carbonaceous chondrites
- Ceara Rise
- Cenozoic
- chemical composition
- chondrites
- chrome spinel
- cosmic dust
- deep-sea environment
- Equatorial Atlantic
- Europe
- event stratigraphy
- grain size
- H chondrites
- He-3
- helium
- Indian Ocean
- interplanetary dust
- isotopes
- Italy
- Leg 121
- Leg 154
- Marches Italy
- marine environment
- Messinian
- meteorites
- Miocene
- Neogene
- Ninetyeast Ridge
- noble gases
- North Atlantic
- Ocean Drilling Program
- ODP Site 757
- ODP Site 926
- ordinary chondrites
- oxides
- pelagic environment
- Southern Europe
- stable isotopes
- stony meteorites
- Tertiary
- Tortonian
- upper Miocene
- Monte dei Corvi