The Alano di Piave section (Veneto region, NE Italy) is the leading candidate for defining the GSSP for the Middle/Upper Eocene, equated to the base of the Priabonian Stage. Calcareous plankton (nannofossils and foraminifera) high-resolution quantitative biostratigraphies have been completed and correlated to magnetostratigraphy and to oxygen and carbon stable isotopes across the critical interval, while dinocyst biostratigraphical and benthic foraminiferal studies are close to completion.
During 2008 studies on the Alano di Piave section (Veneto region, NE Italy), the potential candidate for defining the GSSP of the Middle/Upper Eocene, equated to the base of the Priabonian Stage, are basically completed. Calcareous plankton (nannofossils and foraminifera) high-resolution quantitative biostratigraphies are now well correlated to magnetostratigraphy and to oxygen and carbon stable isotopes across the critical interval. The integrated biomagnetostratigraphy of the Alano di Piave section has been published in the Geological Society America Bulletin in Agnini and co-authors (2011). Dinocyst biostratigraphical and benthic foraminiferal studies are close to completion.

Update 2017

The Alano section is the candidate section for defining the GSSP of the Priabonian. The Alano section (Belluno Province, NE Italy) has been officially declared as “geosito”, i.e. a locality of special scientific interest by ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), in October 2013. A technical sheet is now available on ISPRA website. This action will guarantee preservation and access to the GSSP.

The study on integrated stratigraphy of the proposed Priabonian GSSP at Alano di Piave, including radio-isotopic dating and astrochronology complementing the available bio- and magnetostratigraphic data of Agnini et al. (2011), will be shortly submitted to an international journal.

A further study on the Alano section across the Bartonian-Priabonian interval has been performed on the bryozoan and micromorphic brachiopod content, whose preliminary data have been presented in June 2013 at the 16th International Conference of the Bryozoology Association. Finally, investigations have been extended to the Varignano section (Trento, NE Italy), located 80 km west of the Alano section, which contains eight resedimented bioclastic levels bearing larger foraminifera (LF), in the aim to directly correlate regionally calcareous plankton and LF biostratigraphic scales. The preliminary results has been published in Strati 2013 by Papazzoni and co-workers (2014). The formal proposal to ISPS will be presented in early 2017.

An integraded stratigraphical study (calcareous nannofossils, planktonic foraminifera, larger benthic foraminifera, and low-resolution magnetostratigraphy) of the Urtsadzor section in south-western Armenia has been published in the Special Issue of Newsletter on Stratigraphy  Advances in Paleogene research. This study correlates larger foraminiferal events with global plankton biostratigraphy in a section outside of southwest Europe, where most previous correlations have been based. The results indicate that the bioevents are not synchronous across groups, with implications for biostratigraphy and recognition of the basal Priabonian in different depositional settings and regions.

References

Agnini, C. , Backman, J., Fornaciari, E., Galeotti, S., Giusberti, L., Grandesso, P., Lanci, L., Monechi, S., Muttoni, G., Pälike, H., Pampaloni, M.L., Pignatti, J., Premoli Silva, I., Raffi, I., Rio, D., Rook, L. & Stefani, C.  (2013). The Alano section: the candidate GSSP for the Priabonian Stage. STRATI 2013, Lisbon, July 1-7, 2013, Ciencias da Terra, Numero Especial VII, p. 13.

Agnini, C., Fornaciari, E., Giusberti, L., Grandesso, P., Lanci, L., Luciani, V., Muttoni, G., Pälike, H., Spofforth, D.J.A., & Stefani, C. (2011). Integrated biomagnetostratigraphy of the Alano section (NE Italy): A proposal for defining the middle-late Eocene boundary. GSA Bulletin 123, 841–872, doi: 10.1130/B30158.1.

Braga, G., Bitner, M.A. & Giusberti, L. (2013). Bryozoans and micromorphic brachiopods (lophophorata) from the Bartonian-Priabonian of the Alano di Piave section (NE Italy). 16 th International Conference of Bryozoology Association. Abstract Volume 94-94, 10-16 June 2013 Catania, Italia.

Cotton, L.J., Zakrevskaya, E.Y., van der Boon, A., Asatryan, G., Hayrapetyan, F., Israyelyan, A., Krijgsman, W., Less, G., Monechi, S., Papazzoni, C.A., Pearson, P.N., Razumovskiy, A., Renema, W., Shcherbinina, E., Wade, B.S., 2017. Integrated stratigraphy of the Priabonian (upper Eocene) Urtsadzor section, Armenia. Newsletters on Stratigraphy 50, 269–295, doi: 10.1127/nos/2016/0313.

Papazzoni, C.A., Moretti, A., Luciani, V., Fornaciari, E., Giusberti, L., 2014. Correlation between shallow benthic zones and calcareous plankton zones at the Bartonian- Priabonian transition: preliminary results from the Varignano section (Trento Province, northern Italy). In: Rocha, R., Pais, J., Kullberg, J.C., Finney S. (Eds.), STRATI 2013 First International Congress on Stratigraphy – At the Cutting Edge of Stratigraphy. Springer, 127–130.