Shallow water benthic communities at the Middle-Upper Eocene boundary
Southern and north-eastern Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary

The 5th IGCP 393 meeting: 18th-31th July, 2000

The 5th meeting of the UNESCO/IGCP 393 "Neritic Events at the Middle-Upper Eocene boundary" (leader of the project Esmeralda Caus, Universidad Autonoma of Barcelona, Spain) took place in Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary from July 18th to 31th, 2000. These periodic meetings (every year) were initiated in Basel (Switzerland) in 1996.  

The scientific session, organised by Carmela Loriga Broglio and Davide Bassi (University of Ferrara), was held in Ferrara on 21th-22th July at the Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche e Paleontologiche of the University with two days of oral and poster communications focusing on recent results concerning the Middle-Upper Eocene fossil assemblages from Europe, Jamaica and Japan. The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale of Ferrara (Enrico Trevisani, responsible) is editing in the Annali del Museo the abstracts corresponding to the oral presentations and to the posters.

 Three main field trips were organised before and after the indoor meeting. A well documented field trip guidebook ("Shallow water benthic communities at the Middle-Upper Eocene boundary. Southern and north-eastern Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary", Davide Bassi ed., in press by the Annali dell'Università di Ferrara) describes all the localities visited and provides an account on the local stratigraphy and on the regional geology.

The pre-meeting excursion (18th July; responsible Filippo Barattolo, University of Naples) focused on the Spirolina Facies of the Trentinara Formation (Late Paleocene-Lutetian) in the Southern Apennines. Three post-meeting field trips followed the indoor meeting. The participants of the three-days field trip (23th-25th July) in the Vicenza province visited Mossano (the Priabonian parastratotype located in the Colli Berici), Priabona (the Priabonian stratotype, located in the Monti Lessini), the Middle-Upper Eocene boundary outcropping at Pradipaldo (Altopiano di Asiago), and the Late Eocene of Possagno (southern Monte Grappa). The organisers of the field trips were D. Bassi (Univ. Ferrara); Giampietro Braga, Bruno Bizzotto, and Paolo Mietto (Univ. Padova); Cesare Papazzoni (Univ. Modena); Enrico Trevisani (Museo di Civico di Storia Naturale of Ferrara). On 24th July the review and discussion session of the meeting was held at the Museo Naturalistico Archeologico of Santa Corona in Vicenza.

The third field trip (25th-28th July) was devoted to the Priabonian successions of Povlak, Sustarica, Visnjica ,and Ravna Gora in Slovenia and Croatia (responsible Katica Drobne). The fourth excursion took place in Hungary (28th-31th July; responsible Gyorgy Less) where the participants visited the Middle-Upper Eocene successions of Ajka, Urhida, Calvari Hill area, Buda, Kisgyor, Miskolc, and Csokas.

 The work during the indoor meeting and the review and discussion session was fairly dense because the firm goal of the research group is to define the shallow water benthic chronostratigraphical subdivisions at the Bartonian-Priabonian boundary. The data collected from several key localities during the last four years will provide fundamental information about the biostratigraphy of this period by focusing on the high-resolution biostratigraphy based on relevant shallow water index taxa at species level. This means to study the index taxa by oriented sections and by comparing the parameters of their inner morphology at standard enlargements. One of the aims of the research group is to work out a modern palaeontological overview over a considerable taxonomic spectrum. The results of the project will be presented during the "Forams 2002" meeting which will take place in Perth (Australia, Febr. 3-17, 2002).

 Davide Bassi
Secretary of the 5th IGCP 393 meeting