Edoardo Martinetto | Università degli Studi di Torino (original) (raw)

Papers by Edoardo Martinetto

Springer Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment, 2020

Large areas of Earth’s continents were covered by temperate forests before the dramatic increase ... more Large areas of Earth’s continents were covered by temperate forests before the dramatic increase of the human population in the past two millennia. Prior to human expansion, temperate forests were more extensive in the Neogene (23–2.6 Ma) when climate at the middle latitudes was slightly warmer and more equable than at the present. These temperate forests exhibited a high diversity of plant taxa, higher than today in several geographical areas. Such high diversity in the past can be explained by two reasons. First, angiosperms originated in the Cretaceous and underwent an important phylogenetic diversification during and shortly after that period. These new plant lineages easily dispersed between North America and Eurasia, and biogeographic range expansions continued across other continents. Second, since the Eocene/Oligocene transition (c. 34 Ma), several members of tropical/subtropical lineages adapted to cooler conditions and entered the warmer temperate realm. An equable climate with abundant precipitation in widespread areas provided a suitable habitat for moisture-requiring woody plants. The higher floristic diversity in the Neogene compared to the present is best illustrated by European fossil plants and, to a lesser extent, by those in North America. The area covered by temperate forests in South America decreased consistently after the late Miocene, and the dominant woody plants of the Neogene remained only in the westernmost regions. A floristic impoverishment is not clearly documented in Australia, where there was a much higher diversity of conifers in the Oligocene-Miocene than today. Beginning some 6 million years ago, several global intervals of colder and/or drier climate reduced the habitat of those taxa that required nonfreezing temperatures and moisture, finally resulting in a large mass extirpation/extinction of thermophilous plants in western Eurasia. This turnover occurred primarily between 3.5 and 1.0 million years ago. The trend was different in eastern Eurasia where extirpation/extinction has been rather limited. In conclusion, the mid-latitudes of all the continents witnessed a triumph of the extension and diversity of temperate forests from about 34 to 3 million years ago (Oligocene-Pliocene) and, in many temperate places, these grew under wetter and warmer conditions than today.

The Pleistocene molluscs of Rocca del Campione (Cherasco, NW Italy) in the frame of the geologica... more The Pleistocene molluscs of Rocca del Campione (Cherasco, NW Italy) in the frame of the geological and palaeoenvironmental evolution of the Tanaro River In the quaternary outcrop of Rocca del Campione located in the municipality of Cherasco, province of Cuneo, NW Italy, sandy-gravelly continental deposits in sub-horizontal layers occur, unconformably overlying a marly Messinian succession. The deposit is about 10 m thick and lays ca. 40 m above the water level of the Tanaro River, which abundantly eroded this deposit, so that a limited remain of the deposit was left behind. The palaeontological remains (mainly molluscs) have been studied with the purpose of reconstructing the plaeoenvironmental evolution during the Pleistocene, also using the information of foregoing works. Some components of the malacofauna, such Discus perspectivus (von Mühlfeldt) or Helicodonta angigyra (Rossmässler) can be attributed to a warm temperate and humid climate, yet they are found with minor frequency than those species which are less thermophilic, such as Succinea oblonga Draparnaud or Galba truncatula (Müller). Among aquatic molluscs we report species adapted to still-water or wetland condition, such as the bivalve Pisidium pseudosphaerium Schlesch. There are also species of open environment, such as Vallonia pulchella (Müller), but in definitely lower frequency. Also Charophyta occur, only in the older layers, including Lichnothamnus barbatus (Meyen), characteristic of shallow and cool water. The abundance of the aquatic species decreases from older to younger layers, whereas the one of terrestrial species is increasing, so that in the succession we can point out the transition from an environment covered by shallow water to another with a nearly dry soil. The deposit yielded remains with a definite biochronological indication, such as a M2 tooth of Arvicolidae and a few shell of the gastropod Belgrandia cf. B. latina (Settepassi), which point to a late quaternary age (late Pleistocene?). In consideration of the geographic and palaeogeographic context we believe that the deposit can result from the deposition in an ancient bed of the Tanaro River, which was going to be abandoned. This possibly occurred during a stadial/interstadial climatic oscillation, corresponding to a pause of the intense erosional activity which led to the formation of the deeply incised present Tanaro valley. Judging from the results obtained we can hypothesize that the deposit corresponds to one of the cool oscillations after the last interglacial (MIS5).

New records of plant macrofossils of palms and other groups are evaluated within the framework of... more New records of plant macrofossils of palms and other groups are evaluated within the framework of the Messinian environment at the newly studied site of Capo di Fiume, Palena, central Italy. Similar palm foliage has been also recovered from the Messinian deposits of Pollenzo near Alba, northern Italy. The palm leaves were assigned to Phoenicites sp. based only on the leaf morphology. The floristic composition of the Palena plant assemblage shows a relatively high abundance of woody elements typical of a subhumid environment (Tetraclinis, Cupressus, Leguminosae), but also includes common mesic elements (Pinus, Magnolia, Ilex, Berberis, cf. Trigonobalanopsis, Paliurus, Myrica, Engelhardia), which are known from other Messinian floras of Italy, France and Greece. The affinities of several angiosperm macrofossils including enigmatic inflorescences resembling palms and Butomus, foliage of Dicotylophyllum sp. div. and disseminules of Carpolites sp. div. remain unresolved. The reconstructe...

Rivista Italiana Di Paleontologia E Stratigrafia, 2017

A multiproxy study of the lignite-bearing lacustrine sequence cropping out at Castel San Pietro (... more A multiproxy study of the lignite-bearing lacustrine sequence cropping out at Castel San Pietro (CSP) (Rieti, central Italy) provides new insights on the paleoenvironmental evolution of an extensional basin, located on the Tyrrhenian side of the Apennine range. The CSP fossiliferous levels reflect deposition in a stable lacustrine environment. Mammal remains collected from this locality during the past centuries include Stephanorhinus etruscus, Anancus arvernensis and the beaver Castor fiber. The co-existence of the Etruscan rhinoceros and the mastodont suggests a middle Villafranchian age (Montopoli or Coste San Giacomo Faunal Unit) for the lignite beds of CSP. New paleoflora findings are in agreement with an attribution to the Piacenzian or Gelasian age for these deposits whilst the presence of the ostracod Qinghaicypris cf. Q. riojensis suggests a time interval from Zanclean to Gelasian (between ~4.5 and ~1.8 Ma). Accordingly, the lignite beds of CSP most likely were deposited du...

Fossil Imprint, 2016

Compressions of fossil leaves on marl blocks soaked with water are tricky palaeobotanic findings ... more Compressions of fossil leaves on marl blocks soaked with water are tricky palaeobotanic findings to deal with. In fact, this peculiarity makes the findings exposed to serious degradation: the evaporation of water causes shrinkage of the matrix and the leaf leading to fragmentation, delamination and exfoliation of the fossil, until its final disappearance. The aim of this research was to identify a consolidation method which satisfies museum needs and can be utilised for all conditions of hydration of the object. Following a survey of several natural science museums in Northern Italy, Paraloid™ B72 and PEG4000 along with other resins never previously used on this kind of fossil were tested. At the end of the research, two products gave adequate or good results, preserving the leaf from further degradation whatever the hydration condition of the object: the acrylic resin Paraloid™ B72 and a polyurethane resin.

Bollettino della Societa Paleontologica Italiana

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2017

You may download, copy and otherwise use the AAM for non-commercial purposes provided that your l... more You may download, copy and otherwise use the AAM for non-commercial purposes provided that your license is limited by the following restrictions: (1) You may use this AAM for non-commercial purposes only under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND license. (2) The integrity of the work and identification of the author, copyright owner, and publisher must be preserved in any copy.

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 2006

Fossil leaves of Messinian age (ca. 5.7 Ma) from two sites of the Vena del Gesso Fm. (Monte Tondo... more Fossil leaves of Messinian age (ca. 5.7 Ma) from two sites of the Vena del Gesso Fm. (Monte Tondo and Tossignano, Ravenna and Bologna provinces, Italy) were studied morphologically to assess the taxonomic composition of the assemblages and carry out a palaeoenvironmental analysis. The flora of Tossignano so far comprises 41 vascular plant taxa with 8 conifers and 33 angiosperms (30 dicots and 3 monocots). In the plant material from Monte Tondo 74 vascular plant taxa were recognized, with 11 conifers and 63 angiosperms (59 dicots, 3 monocots, 1 plant incertae sedis). Several fossil species well known in the Miocene of central Europe and Italy were detected. The most frequent being Taxodium dubium, Pinus cf. rigios, Daphnogene polymorpha, Laurophyllum sp. 1 and 2, Platanus leucophylla, Quercus pseudocastanea, Quercus roburoides, Fagus gussonii, cf. Ailanthus pythii, Leguminosae gen. et sp. indet. 1. The general palaeovegetation pattern of the Monte Tondo and Tossignano plant assemblag...

Dunarobba and Pietrafitta are two outstanding fossil sites, which provide us with a glimpse on ce... more Dunarobba and Pietrafitta are two outstanding fossil sites, which provide us with a glimpse on central Italian palaeoenviron-ments during two different time spans. The still poorly dated Dunarobba succession is framed, mainly on the basis of continental mollusc biochronology, within the Piacenzian-Gelasian interval, whereas the Pietrafitta one is reliably dated to the Calabrian thanks to vertebrate biochronology. Here we add several new palaeobotanical data for the two sites and we provide for the first time an overview of the strati-graphic, sedimentological, palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental results so-far obtained. We also review the palaeobotanical evidence concerning the neighbouring sites of Cava Toppetti I/II, Fosso Bianco, Torre Picchio and Villa San Faustino. On the basis of the available datasets we conclude that the Dunarobba Fossil Forest, with several large conifer trunks in upright position, was produced by an ancient swamp vegetation dominated by Glyptostrobus ...

The most accepted killing model for the Permian-Triassic mass extinction (PTME) postulates that m... more The most accepted killing model for the Permian-Triassic mass extinction (PTME) postulates that massive volcanic eruption (i.e., the Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province) led to geologically rapid global warming, acid rain and ocean anoxia. On land, habitable zones were drastically reduced, due to the combined effects of heating, drought and acid rains. This hyperthermal had severe effects also on the paleobiogeography of several groups of organisms. Among those, the tetrapods, whose geographical distribution across the end-Permian mass extinction (EPME) was the subject of controversy in a number of recent papers. We here describe and interpret a new Early Triassic (?Olenekian) archosauriform track assemblage from the Gardetta Plateau (Briançonnais, Western Alps, Italy) which, at the Permian-Triassic boundary, was placed at about 11° North. The tracks, both arranged in trackways and documented by single, well-preserved imprints, are assigned to Isochirotherium gardettensis ichnosp....

The plant macrofossil documentation of northern Italy has been considerably increased by recent p... more The plant macrofossil documentation of northern Italy has been considerably increased by recent palaeocarpological studies. In this paper twenty rich local carpofloras of the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene are analysed. Some of them are well dated by means of non-palaeobotanical methods, and are exploited as reference points in defining the regional palaeofloristic features of different time intervals. The remaining ones are tentatively framed in a chronological sequence thanks to ecostratigraphic (palaeoclimatic) signals. Finally, the floristic data of both types of floras are used to detect the main floral changes: the Pliocene seems to be a crucial epoch for plant extinction, which occurred at least in two successive phases.

A comparative analysis of micro (pollen)and macropalaeobotanical (leaves, fruits and seeds) data ... more A comparative analysis of micro (pollen)and macropalaeobotanical (leaves, fruits and seeds) data from selected Northern and Central Italy sites has been carried out in order to obtain an accurate interpretation of the palaeofloristic, vegetational and climatic setting for the Messinian and the Zanclean. Ancient plant communities, as reconstructed by means of this integrated approach, show the dominance of warm temperate forest taxa, with the highest floristic affinity to the forests of Central China. “Cool temperate” taxa are scarcely represented in pollen records, with the exception of some intervals characterized by the increase in Picea and Cedrus. The overall scantiness of herbs indicates the absence of dry conditions and no open vegetation expansion. All the analytic methods applied to such palaeofloral records indicate that precipitation was sufficiently high for the persistence of a “broad-leaved evergreen/warm temperate mixed forest” from 6.0 to 3.5 Ma. For the evaporitic Me...

Phytotaxa

Lycopus is a widespread herbaceous plant, currently part of European flora. Fossil remains of fru... more Lycopus is a widespread herbaceous plant, currently part of European flora. Fossil remains of fruits (nutlets or mericarps) attributed to this genus are frequently found in European archaeological and palaeontological sites, being easily preserved in sedimentary deposits. In a worldwide context, the oldest fossils are from the early Oligocene (ca. 30 Ma) of West Siberia, but they become more common in Miocene (23.0–5.3 Ma) records, ranging from West Siberia to Central Europe. In the literature, the Oligocene and Miocene remains (plus a few Pliocene ones) were assigned to fossil-species, whereas the abundant Pliocene and Pleistocene occurrences (5–0.01 Ma) in Europe were mainly assigned to the extant species L. europaeus. The present work is conceived as the result of an ad hoc research team whose task was to revise and summarize the Italian fossil record of Lycopus, assembling palaeobotanical and archaeobotanical data. We herein report ca. 6000 Lycopus nutlets from 61 sites located ...