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.
Last Glacial Maximum giant sand dunes on the island of Vis, Croatia
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Published:September 11, 2019
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CiteCitation
Lara Wacha*, Alessandro Montanari*, Johanna Lomax*, Markus Fiebig*, Christopher Lüthgens*, Tvrtko Korbar*, Christian Koeberl*, 2019. "Last Glacial Maximum giant sand dunes on the island of Vis, Croatia", 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
An ~10-m-thick sequence of Quaternary eolian sands from the island of Vis (Croatia) was investigated with the aim to unravel and understand their origin, characteristics, and age. The sand deposit is situated in a karstic depression in the eastern part of the island at an altitude of ~100 m above sea level (a.s.l.), and it is composed of a subhorizontally laminated unit at the bottom underlying a cross-bedded unit. The sand is very well sorted and fine grained and composed predominantly of carbonate lithic fragments, which most likely originated from the Dinaric karst region. The siliciclastic component of these sands reflects a more complex lithological source, including older sedimentary (e.g., flysch successions in the area, as well as older Quaternary deposits), magmatic, and metamorphic rocks probably originating from the Inner Dinarides, which were eroded and comminuted by glacial and periglacial activity during the last glacial period, and transported toward the Adriatic foreland by major rivers such as the Cetina and Neretva. Grain size and shape characteristics of the sands as well as their sedimentary structure indicate their eolian origin. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating was applied to determine the depositional age of the sediment. The obtained ages can be correlated to the Last Glacial Maximum (oxygen isotope stage [OIS] 2), implying that during the peak of that glaciation, the central Adriatic basin was dry land, a vast plain exposed to eolian deflation.
- Alps
- Cenozoic
- clastic sediments
- Croatia
- deflation
- depositional environment
- Dinaric Alps
- dunes
- Eastern Alps
- electron diffraction data
- electron probe data
- erosion
- Europe
- glaciation
- grain size
- karst
- last glacial maximum
- mineral composition
- optical dating
- optically stimulated luminescence
- Pleistocene
- provenance
- Quaternary
- sand
- sediments
- shape analysis
- sorting
- Southern Europe
- upper Pleistocene
- wind erosion
- Cetina River
- Vis Island
- Neretva River
- EBSD data
- Vis Sand