Ricerc@Sapienza

The drowning of carbonate platforms is a fascinating topic because it may be induced by several concomitant factors. A key setting to investigate carbonate platform drowning is a foreland basin. The Nummulitic Limestone ramp developed in the foreland of the western Alps during the Bartonian, while the Lithothamnion and Bryozoan Limestone ramp deposited in the foreland of the central Apennines between the Burdigalian and Serravallian.

The Eocene-Oligocene Transition is a key interval in the evolution of the modern climate, representing the last greenhouse-icehouse transition faced by the Earth. Shallow-water carbonate systems hold essential information of the global changes related to the E-O Transition. In this work, we focus on the Majella Mountain carbonate ramp to identify the shallow-water sedimentary expression of the oceanographic and sea-level changes related to the E-O Transition, and to compare it with the deep-marine records and the coeval shallow-water successions.