Page 13 - Malatesta

Alberto Malatesta: 20 years of activity at the Geological Survey of Italy 23

Fig 14 - Historical hall of the “Paleontological Collections” hosting the chest of drawers containing the “Malatesta Collection” situated at the
third floor of the Geological Survey at Largo Santa Susanna, 13 - Rome
Sala storica delle “ Collezioni Paleontologiche” con le cassettiere in legno che ospitano la Collezione Malatesta, situata al terzo piano
della sede del Servizio Geologico di Largo di Santa Susanna, 13 - Roma.

4. PUBLICATIONS
As already mentioned, the scientific
activity of A. Malatesta, always driven by
great passion, curiosity and constancy,
showed his indisputed knowledges in both
the geological sensu lato and paleontologi-
cal fields. In fact, of the 54 publications car-
ried out within over twenty years of em-
ployment at the Geological Survey of Italy,
about 24 are closely connected to palaeon-
tology (7 concerning remains of verte-
brates, 6 of which on mammals and 1 on
bird, 13 concerning molluscs, 1 on echino-
ids and 1 on microfaunas), and 2 on more
general topics such as general palaeontol-
ogy and the application of binomial no-
menclature, whereas 25 are more related
to geological investigations, and 5 to arc-
haeological researches.
Actually, such a classification of his
publications is somehow forced, because
in all his papers it is always evident his
multidisciplinary approach that led him to
face each single problem in the frame of
a general context. This characteristic,
revealed not only in the variety of the treated topics but (MALATESTA, 1964a) and “Eocene Fossils of the territo-
also in each paper, made A. Malatesta an “all- ry of Briga and Tenda in the Maritime Alps” (MALATES-
accomplished” researcher, who somehow went against TA, 1964b) related to the geological survey activities for
the idea “of specialization” diffused in the Academy. the realization of the geological Map of Italy at
Thanks to his non sectorial knowledge, A. Malatesta 1:100.000 scale.
could face a wide range of questions concerning pa- Even if most of his papers were published on Ital-
laeogeography, biochronostratigraphy, palaeoecology ian journals (the half of which on the Bollettino del Ser-
etc. vizio Geologico d’Italia), his vocational training and
Analyzing his papers in a chronostratigraphic scientific authoritativeness were undisputed and appre-
perspective, we notice that his scientific interests were ciated also out of Italy.
primarily devoted to the problems related to the Plio- Among the works published during his twenty years
Pleistocene and, more in general, to Quaternary, al- at the Geological Survey that contributed in the most in-
though few researches were related to most ancient cisive way to the growth of the paleontological and geo-
times, such as the “Egadi Islands fossiliferous Trias” logical knowledges and those that still today result