B018905 - EVOLUTION OF TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS

Italian

The geologic age dating. Milankovitch. The role of the Sun and of the Cosmic Rays. Glacial and periglacial morphologies, sea-level excursions, terraces. Glacial and periglacial sediments, paleosols, lacustrine, eolic,cave sediments. Stable isotope and ice core stratigraphy. Palynologicial record (outline of paleoclimatology), vertebrates. Insular faunas. Pleistocene-Holocene extinctions. Evolution of human sustenance strategies.

Bennett, M.R., Glasser, N.F., 1999. Glacial Geology, Ice Sheets and Landforms. Wiley, New York, 364 pp.

Clutton-Brock J. 1999. Storia naturale della domesticazione dei mammiferi. Bollati Boringhieri

Davis S.J.M. 1987. The archaeology of animals. Batsford, London.

Kahlke, R.-D., García N., Kostopoulos D.S., Lacombat F., Lister A.M., Mazza P.P.A., Spassov N., Titov V.V., 2011. Western Palaearctic palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Early and early Middle Pleistocene inferred from large mammal communities, and implications for hominin dispersal in Europe. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 1368-1395.

Lowe, J. J. and Walker, M. J. C. 1997. Reconstructing Quaternary Environments (2nd edition). Prentice Hall., pp. 472.

Prange, M., G. Lohmann, V. Romanova, and M. Butzin 2004, Modelling tempo-spatial signatures of Heinrich Events: Influence of the climatic background state, Quaternary Science Review 23, 521– 527.

Walker, M. 2005. Quaternary Dating Methods. 286 pp. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

Overall analysis of habitat changes and of the ensuing ecological dynamics over the last 2.6 million years aimed at understanding and learning the mechanisms of Earth’s climate, of its influence on the biosphere and on how it is recorded in the sediments.

Background in geology and paleontology

Powerpoint-aided lectures and field experience on Quaternary stratigraphical successions

Oral test, with animal bone recognition

Time in Geology – linear and cyclic time. Relative and absolute time.
Geologic age dating – radiometric dating techniques used in Quaternary analysis; incremental dating; tephrochronology; chronology based on chemical alteration.
Astrochronology - dating of sediments with reference to astronomically tuned units; cyclic variations in stratigraphic recording. Milankovitch’s cycles: periodic variations in Earth’s orbital features (tilt of Earth’s rotation axis relative to the orbital plane – Equinox precession; tilt of Earth’s rotation axis relative to the ecliptic plane; orbital eccentricity). Solar and cosmic ray cycles: influence on Earth’s climate.
Glacial Quaternary – geomorphological evidence: glacial and periglacial morphologies, sea-level excursions, alluvial terrances, Quaternary morphologies at low latitudes. Lithological evidence: glacial and periglacial sediments, paleosols, lacustrine, eolic,cave sediments, ice-core stratigraphy. Heinrich events. Oxygen and carbon stable isotope stratigraphy.
Quaternary paleontology – outline of palynology, analysis of diatoms, plant macrofossils, insects, forams, ostracods, molluscs. Biochronology and characters of Quaternary vertebrates. Outline of human evolution and of human sustenance strategies (from necrophagy to hunting to domestication). The Younger Dryas and its possible causes. Overkill theory.
Insular colonization – ways of immigration, insular ecological dynamics, MacArthur and Wilson’s modles and Foster’s Island Rule.