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Sea-level changes in the Adriatic from tide-gauge data Fabio RaicichAssessing the impact of climate change in Italian coastal areas: tools and methods of risk and vulnerability assessment. Silvia Torresan, Elisa Furlan, Petra dalla Pozza, Diana Derepasko, Andrea Critto, Melania Michetti, Mattia Amadio, Jaroslav Mysiak 35131, Padova, Italy alessandro.fontana@unipd.it, livio.ronchi@gmail.com ANNAMARIA CORREGGIARI CNR-ISMAR Institute of Marine Sciences in BolognaVia Gobetti 101, 40129, Bologna, Italy anna.correggiari@bo.ismar.cnr.it STEFANO FURLANIUniversity of 34128, Trieste, Italy Stefano.furlani@units.it MLADEN JURAČIĆ, IGOR FELJAUniversity of Zagreb -Faculty of Science, Department of Geology Horvatovac 102a, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia mjuracic@geol.pmf.hr, igorfelja@geol.pmf.hr In the last years strong e orts have been done by the scienti c community to reconstruct the post-LGM transgression and describe it through geophysical models that could match with the observed eld data. Notwithstanding, the eustatic curve is still largely unconstrained before 8 ka BP because of the few available data. Northern Adriatic is one of the very few places in the Mediterranean Basin where the sea-level variations occurred between Lateglacial and Early Holocene are recorded. These changes are documented by sediments and landforms, thanks to the gentle slope of the continental shelf and the occurrence of lagoon and paralic environments, which are strongly sensitive even to subtle variations of the sea level. This research considered the large database of CHIRP-Sonar pro les and stratigraphic cores collected by CNR-ISMAR of Bologna, especially through the oceanographic missions carried out on-board of the research vessel Urania. A major issue is the recognition and characterization of the periods of rapid increase of the sea level, which punctuated some phases during the Lateglacial and the rst part of Holocene, which caused the abrupt submersion of large sectors of the coast. In the study area the remnants of a large barrier-island system formed during Younger Dryas and drowned in place soon after are present. Moreover, important information about a sea-level jump occurred around 9.5-9.2 ka BP have been recently documented in the deltaic plain of Po River and in the submerged shelf. This phase of transgression led the Adriatic to enter in the Gulf of Trieste, dramatically transforming the area between Istria and the coast of Friuli. Some key questions, still partly unsolved, are related to the main indexes allowing the identi cations of sea-level jumps and the possible occurrence of sea-level stillstands or the apparent decrease of the marine rise because of the increase in sediment supply.Keywords: transgressive deposits, lagoon environments, submarine landforms We investigated MIS 5.5 fossil tidal notches located in tectonically stable coasts of the central Mediterranean. In these stable areas, the elevation of the base of the MIS 5.5 notch ranges from 2.09 to 12.48 m, with a mean of 5.7 m. Such variability,...

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Rocky pinnacles arising from soft bottoms of the circa-littoral zone may host oases of deepwa- ter coral biodiversity: Engineer species that enhance ecosystem’s three-dimensional complexity often act- ing as shelter for associated fauna that can comprise commercially relevant species. Although variations in beta diversity of these coral oases were recently docu- mented at different spatial scales, information on the role of geomorphogical features of rocky outcrops can be considered mostly an unaddressed issue. To comply with this task, five rocky pinnacles showing different geomorphological features (average slope, ruggedness, sediment accumulation), dwelling between 120 and 170 m depth along south Sardinia continental margin, were investigated by means of ROV imaging. We tested the null hypothesis that coral abundance and diversity [estimated using four black corals (Antipatharia) and seven gorgonians (Alcyonacea) as target species] did not differ among investigated sites. Overall, total coral abundance varied from 1.35 to 7.23 col m2; Callogor- gia verticillata, followed by Eunicella cavolinii and Corallium rubrum were the most abundant gorgonians, while Antipathella subpinnata and Parantipathes larix were the most abundant black corals. Through uni- and multivariate analyses, significant differences in corals biodiversity were identified, allowing us to reject the null hypothesis, emphasizing a remarkable variability in beta diversity, apparently following variations in geo- morphological features of investigated pinnacles. More- over, a visual census of anthropogenic debris revealed that lost fishing gears represented the most frequently observed debris, stressing the need to identify further and more focused strategies of conservation to protect these oases of coral biodiversity