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ARTICLE IN PRESS 39

L. Ferranti et al. / Quaternary International 145– 146 (2006) 30–54

Fig. 7. Elevation of the MIS 5.5 markers, indicated by numbers in black in metres with respect to modern s.l., plotted on a DEM of Sardinia.
Markers type and quality factor as listed in Additional Table are indicated. Grey patches indicate the latest Miocene–Quaternary volcanics. Main
faults from the Structural Model of Italy CNR (Bigi et al., 1992). The two insets show details of the elevation pattern in the Capo Caccia promontory
and Golfo di Orosei area.

west is indicative of minor block motion possibly place the MIS 5.5 shoreline at 20 m, but at places, the
accommodated by faults associated with the continental same marker might appear at sea-level (Fig. 8). In
margin of the Western Mediterranean Sea. Western Liguria, an notch and an associated deposit
containing a faunal assemblage with S. bubonius present
In the central segment of the eastern coast, a inside two caves (sites 59–60) indicates sea-level at 12 m.
remarkably well-developed tidal notch is exposed for Slightly eastward, the same faunal assemblage was
over 70 km, and its elevation increases to the north from found at sites 61–62, but here the notch is not preserved.
7.6 to 10.5 m (Fig. 5 and inset in Fig. 7; Carobene and
Pasini, 1982; Antonioli and Ferranti, 1992), whereas Taken at face value, a different vertical behaviour
further to the north it appears at 5 m a.s.l. The small between eastern and western Liguria is apparent,
amplitude bulge outlined by the marker elevation with the marker being slightly uplifted in the western
changes might be associated with the residual activity area and remaining at eustatic value in the eastern one
in the nearby Pliocene–Quaternary Cedrino volcanic (Fig. 8).
field (Fig. 7), whose activity reportedly ended at 140 ka,
before MIS 5.5 (Bigi et al., 1992). 5.3. Tuscany– Lazio

5.2. Liguria The northern part of Tuscany is characterized by the
wide Versilia coastal plain, which is bordered by normal
Sites showing good evidence of a MIS 5.5 highstand faults, whose recent activity was noted through geophy-
are very few along the Ligurian coast (see Federici and sical exploration (Cantini et al., 2001; Carminati et al.,
Pappalardo, this volume). In Eastern Liguria a beach 1999). Documentation of a moderate subsidence of the
deposit, whose terrace displays an inner margin at 28 m plain comes from the ENEA core (Nisi et al., 2003).
a.s.l (Fig. 8), was attributed to the MIS 5.5 based on Samples of C. caespitosa collected within a Cerastoderma
OSL dating. Other scattered outcrops in eastern Liguria lagoonal layer at À71 and À68 b.s.l. yielded mean ages