The Torre del Porticciolo fossil locality is notable for producing the first osteological material of a basal (i.e., non-mammalian) synapsid in Italy, the giant herbivore Alierasaurus ronchii, which although known from fragmentary remains, likely represents the largest known late early to early middle Permian synapsid (6-7 m total length). Recently, a new productive site was discovered about 100 m from the Alierasaurus type locality, but roughly at the same stratigraphic level. The fragmentary nature of most of the recovered bones prompted a taphonomical analysis in order to define the type of find, the kind of burial, and the mode of preservation. The vertebrate remains allowed us to infer a complex taphonomical process involving a multiphase entombment. The recovered bones were subjected to both re-exhumation and reworking. The last short and violent transportation phase before final entombment occurred as a high-energy flow, probably caused by a river flood that carried sediment and bones together to be emplaced in a semi-perennial pond in a crevasse splay deposit. Preliminary analysis of recovered material indicates the presence of a large carnivorous basal synapsid referable to the family Sphenacodontidae. This discovery represents the first carnivorous non-therapsid synapsid from the Permian of Italy and one of only very few known from Europe.
The role of sea-bottom topography in the dispersal of shallow water-derived calciturbidites across a submarine rift, as determined by the local extensional architecture, is under-investigated, namely with pelagic settings along ancient passive continental margins. A comparison with modern carbonate platform/basin analogues, or with siliciclastic systems, is not always feasible, as ancient carbonate systems were commonly home to anachronistic environments (e.g. the Western Tethyan Mesozoic). Our study focuses on: (a) a reconstruction of the palaeotectonic architecture of the 1486 | EAGE CIPRIANI et Al.
The Torre del Porticciolo palaeontological locality (Alghero, north‐west Sardinia, Italy) is important for having provided the skeletal remains of the first Permian basal synapsid from Italy, Alierasaurus ronchii, the largest late early Permian to early middle Permian non‐therapsid synapsid known to date. Recently, other skeletal remains preliminarily attributed to a carnivorous non‐therapsid synapsid were described from a second site, approximately from the same stratigraphic level within the Cala del Vino Fm. During the excavation of this second site, tetrapod tracks were found near Cala Viola, about 1 km from the first two sites. The new find represents the first ichnological record from the Permian of Sardinia. The ichnological analysis allowed the recognition of tetrapods presently not recognized, just on the base of skeletal remains. This new evidence sheds more light on the faunal diversity within the Cala del Vino Fm., which is one of the few examples in the Permian of Europe of a combined ichno‐ and body‐fossil record. The tracks have been referred to as Merifontichnus, an ichnotaxon established from the uppermost portion of the Permian succession of the Lodève Basin in southern France. The new material is the first reliable occurrence of this ichnotaxon from Italy and would represent, to date, the oldest occurrence of the ichnogenus.
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