Università Roma Tre

Historical definition of Quaternary: paleontological and climatic criteria. Historic excursus on the Plio-Quaternary chronostratigraphy. The Plio-Quaternary boundary. Ages and Stages of the marine Quaternary. GSSP and the most relevant Quaternary marine Italian successions. The Anthropocene. The Plio-Pleistocene successions in the Rome surroundings. Quaternary isotopic stratigraphy. Quaternary magnetostratigraphy. Quaternary dating methods. Plio-Quaternary marine biostratigraphy: planktonic and benthonic foraminifers, calcareous nannofossils, marine molluscs and ostracods (concept of “northern” and “senegalese” guests).
History of the continental Plio-Quaternary stratigraphy. Plio-Quaternary biochronology based on large and small mammals, freshwater molluscs and non-marine ostracods. Pollen stratigraphy and climatic stratigraphy. Examples of relevant continental quaternary records in central Italy: the Plio-Quaternary deposits of the Roman Campaign; the intermontane basins in central Italy (Tiberino and l’Aquila basins). Causes of the Quaternary climatic changes. Astronomical theory of climate changes. Precessional ond obliquity cycles, 40 ka and 100 ka glacial and interglacial cycles. Gelasian and Pleistocene glaciations. Historical palaeoclimatology during Holocene. Oxygen isotopes in the oceanic and ice cores. Changes of CO2 and CH4 concentrations. The Holocene and the ice cores. The Anthropocene. Sea-level oscillations during Quaternary: the eustatic curves. Historical chronology of Plio-Quaternary glaciations. Illustration of the most relevant glacial deposits on Alps and Apennines.

Pdf and copies of recent specialistic scientific publications given by the teacher