THE INEXISTENT ISLAND! According to the testimony of the fossils we know that from the Permian, 260 milion years ago, to the Upper Miocene, 6.5 milion.

THE INEXISTENT ISLAND!

According to the testimony of the fossils we know that from the Permian, 260 milion years ago, to the Upper Miocene, 6.5 milion years ago, the area where nowadays is situated Sicily, was continually ruled by the seas.

The Geological Situation of Sicily Nowadays

From a geological point of view, Sicily is a young land, it has always undergone strong tectonic strengths and has been marked by different environments, whose testimonies are minerals and fossils.

The history of the Earth starts with the Paleozoic Era ( from 650 to 250 milion years ago) but in Sicily we have few traces. It is possible to find traces regarding to the Permian in the areas of Roccapalumba, Lercara Friddi and Palazzo Adriano.

At the end of the Paleozoic Era, the Pangea was divided into two blocks, well separated from the Thetis Ocean as well as the earth of Godwanna (including southern Africa and America, India and Australia). 

Geological History of Sicily

THE MESOZOIC ERA In Sicily, the Mesozoic Era begins in the Triassic, with sea deposits, sponges, algae and basin rocks (e.g. Madonie and Sicani Mountains). The Jurassic in Sicily is characterized by a huge expansion of the ammonites (e.g. the Mountain Kumeta, near Palermo). There is a large amount of belemnites and cephalopoda. As to fauna fossils, in the Mesozoic Era they give evidence of the fragmentation of the great continent during the Paleozoic and the division of the Thetis in several basins.

Waagenoceras mojsisovicsi ; Gemmellaro, 1887 ; Palazzo Adriano (PA)

Belemnites

Giant Ammonite Found in Sicily

The Cretaceous is marked in some areas by a calcareous rock, rich of microfossils. Differently, in other areas more suitable conditions created the development of cliffs, where a lot of organisms flourished.

The Rudists Exclusive fossils guide of

this period. The situation, created from the fragmentation of the great continent in existence during the Paleozoic and the subdivision ot the Tethis into more basins, is demontrated from the different fossiliferous associations (between which above all the Ammonites) found in the Mesozoic sedimentary rocks of Northern Europe (boreal domain) and of Southern Europe (tethis domain).

Alveolines Are great benthic foraminiferi, from porcellanaceo and imperforato shell; the shape can be spherical, fusiform or cilindroide. The dimensions can oscillate from 1mm to 10 cm. The first Alveoline, appears in the Lower Cretaceous, later on they are diffused in the Upper Cretaceous and they reach the maximum spread and variety during the Upper Eocene. Today only little kinds live in reef atmospheres of the warm seas of the pacific Ocean.

The Cainozoic Era

• The Cainozoic Era was characterized by strong changes to fauna and flora as well as geological events, which had a huge importance in the creation of Italy and in particular of Sicily. Undoubtedly, the most important event of this period was the raising of the Himalayas Chain under the push of the African continent, pushed towards north by the newborn Dorsal Medio - Atlantica.

• In the Miocene period ( about 24.000.000 years ago), the Mediterranean communicated with the Indian Ocean in the east and with the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Its waters had flooded a part of the newborn Europe, forming a little sea arm inside the Alpine Chain, while the north of Europe had widened towards the Vienna Basin.

The Origin of Sicily • In the Middle Miocene ( nearly 14.000.000 years

ago), the connection with the Indian Ocean closed and the Mediterranean was in communication only with the Atlantic Ocean.

• In the Upper Miocene, the communication with the Atlantic was reduced and stopped by the raising of Gibraltar Spire, an underwater promontory which transformed the Mediterranean in a great lake, characterized by warm and shallow water. In particular, in the period called Massiniano Plane (between 6,25 and 6 milions years ago) the waters of the Mediterranean Basin evaporated and left deposits of salts. As a consequence, almost all kinds of fish, molluscs and echinus died, and only shellfish, that could bear saline changes, survived. Around 5.3 millions years ago, waters returned in the basin, giving start to the Pliocene.

• In Sicily, the Lower Pliocene is represented by “trubi”(globigerina calcareous marly rocks). Their huge presence witnesses its submerging. Later, the “trubis” were replaced by clays and sands. During the Oligocene period, all these sediments started to rise under form of strata of sediments and in the north-west of Sicily they caused the formation and development of the mountains that border the so-called Gold God Basin. The mountains that surround Palermo, e.g. Mount Pellegrino, Capo Gallo, Cozzo di Lupo, Mount Saraceno, Mount Kumeta, Mount Cofano, are sediments belonging to the northern border of Africa. At the same time, other chains such as the Madonie, Nebrodi, Peloritani, rose and a basin, called Caltanisetta Basin, was formed by deposits. Finally, the south-east block of the Iblei Mountains started its origin.

Fig. 12

Sicily during the Lower Pliocene 4.900.000 years ago

Some Sicilian Crystals

Sulphur Gypsum

The Quaternary Era was characterized by the entry in the Mediterranean Sea of the so-called “Nordic Hosts” organisms, mostly molluscs, currently living in the seas of the north, which got into the Mediterranean because of a general cooling of the weather. The main representative was the “ Icelandic Arctic”.

• The Superior Pleistocene, in the Mediterranean basin, was divided into an inferior chronographic unit, with tropical fauna. The period between 80.000 and 10.000 years ago was characterized by the cold fluctuation of Wurm Glaciation.

• In the Holocene man appeared. In this period, Sicily was populated by the ancestors of the modern fauna. This theory is based on the discovery of some fossils.

• In the Middle Pleistocene, there were strong climatic changes; the melting and forming of glaciers caused remarkable oscillations in the sea level, and new species, belonging to the Silian vertebrate fossils, appeared, such as the “Elephas Falconeri”, the smallest elephant, the “ Leithia Cartei”, the “Lutra Trinacria”, as well as birds and reptiles.

• The Middle and the Latest Pleistocene were characterized by the great mammals, coming from Italy, which arrived in Sicily as a consequence of lowerings in the sea level, e.g. the “ Elephas Mnaidriensis (elephant), the “Hippopotamus Pentlandi” (hippopotamus), the “Crocuta Croccuta Spelaea”(hyena), the “Bos Primigenius sicialiane” (uro), the “Bison Priscus Sicialiane” (bison), the “Cervus Elephus Sicialiane”(red deer), the “Ursus Arcots” (bear), the “Sus Scofa” (wild boar), the “Canis Lupus” (wolf), the “Pantera Leo” (lion).

Italy during the Lower Pleistocene

Icelandic Arctica The Guests Coming from the North

• Lower Pleistocene 1,67 M.Y.

• With the beginning of the Quaternary Era a big part of Sicily had already risen out of water and its western side formed, probably, an archipelago.

• The fauna of the Lower Pleistocene is initially composed of sea fauna and is represented of molluscs which at the moment live in the seas of the North such as the Icelandic Artica and the Norwegian Panopaea (“Cold Guests”).

Artica islandica (Linneo, 1767), Falde di Monte Pellegrino (PA)

Elephas Falconeri

it’s about 550.000 years old

Towards the end of the Quaternary Era there is the appearance of the pygmy fauna into places which had been quite far from the continent. In this way it had been impossible to have contacts with other fauna.In Sicily some skeletons of elephants, hyppopotamus and other pygmy animals have been found.The most evident case is the Elephas Falconeri, which in its adluthood couldn't be higher than 1 metre eventhoough it derived from the Elephas Antiquuns which could be even 5 metres tall.

Internal Mould Turtle found in Alcamo

Eggs of Turtle

Mountains and Volcanoes • Sicily’s mountains and volcanoes are remarkable testimonies to the movements of the land

crust in the Mediterranean area.• According to the theory of the “Tectonic of the Plates”, an approaching, between two

continents, creates compressive deformations, which can fracture and raise mountains. • The structural elements in the east of Sicily are:• - The “Apennines-Maghrebide Chains”: in Sicily, it is a part of the mountainous system which

includes Africa (Maghrebide area), Italy ( the Apennines) and the east of Sicily ( the Peloritani Mountains, the Nebrodi and the Erei Mountains). It is formed by a system of “strata”, derived from the movements of the continental plates( Europe, Asia and Africa), which deformed sediments of the river basin between the continents.

• - The “African Avampaese”: in Sicily, it is constituted by the “Ibleo Plateau”. It is delimited to East by the Ionian Sea, for the presence of an important system of faults, the “Ibleo-Maltese Escarpment”, which is important for volcanoes.

• - The “Avanfossa”: it was formed by the collapse of the northern border of the “Avampaese”, and includes the “External Avanfossa” or “Zone of Transition”, that appears in the northern area of the Iblei Mountains, and the “Internal Avanfossa ”.

• In the Miocene Era ( nearly 24-20 milion years ago) the Madonie, the Nebrodi and the Peloritani formed isles in the west-east. To the south of these lands, there was a great and deep marine river basin (Caltanissetta Basin). 

• At the end of Miocene, in the southern Sicily, the “Ibleo Plateau” was a large shallow. Moreover, the effects of the deformations affected the “Ibleo Plateau”, which partially emerged and formed coral-islands, populated by tropical fish.

• At the end of the Lower Pliocene (about 5-4 milion years ago) all the Mediterranean basin, included Sicily, was upset by another tectonic compression, and in the centre of Sicily (Caltanissetta Basin) the sediments flowed and the bottom began to raise and emerge.

• These imposing raisings shrank the existing sea arm, between the northern Sicily and the Iblei, and they slowly provoked an imposing sliding of materials to the south and south-east, which filled up the marine ditch, between the Latest Pliocene and the Quaternary.

• As a consequence, sediments were deformed and moved their geographic position, originally in the river basin near the “African Avampaese”.

• In the northern field, volcanic activity let magma rise again in the period from the Pliocene to the Quaternary.

Elephas Mnaidriensisit is about 180.000 years old

Fossils E. Mnaidriensis have been found at the end of last century in the cave of Puntali (Carini). Recentely, Belluomini's work of 1985, have allowed to determine the age of the too pygmy elephants. Using a method of dating which is based on the racemization of the amino acids, it was possible to establish for the E.Falconeri an age of 550,000years and for the E.Mnaidriensis an age of 180,000. Belluomini's dating has finally been confirmed from a recent discovery of fossils E.Mnaidriensis coming from red soils, which were in some karst fissures open in the travertine of Alcamo. The red soils are subsequent sediments compared to the formation of the n travertine.

Reconstruction of a Sicilian Buffalo

Skull of a Wild Boar

Reconstruction of a daily routine of the Paleolitic man

GEOLOGY OFMOUNT PELLEGRINO

Monte Pellegrino is an isolated relief and forms part of the Palermo Mountains. It is made up of a carbonaticrock succession (upper Trias – Eocene), belonging to three different stratigraphic series referable to a platform palaeogeographic domain. These deposits are deformed and faulteddue to the Neogenic orogenic phases and to the Plio – Pleistocene tectonic events that involved the whole complex of the Monti di Palermo The geomorphological setting of Mount Pellegrinoconsists of structural forms, originating from surface waters, karstic, and coastal, and other forms produced by slope and planation processes The morphologies originating from surface runoff waters are mainly valleys and relict riverbedsNowadays the surface washout waters are responsible for the removal of the eluvial covers and of the slope deposits outcropping along the fl anks or in themountain-top areas. Among the forms infl uenced by the surface runoff waters the Valle del Porco canyon can be noted, produced by a combination of fl uvial and karstic processes. The epigean karstic forms are represented by open dolines and karren. The main hypogean forms are represented by caves and sinkholes. The coastal processes played a role of great importance in the evolution of the peripheral areas, deeply infl uencing the present morphology of the relief edges. Owing to the emersion of the fault planes, responsible for the confi guration of the Monte Pellegrino structural high, were reworked by the erosion of the Pleistocene sea that formed sea cliffs affected by parallel regressions. Moreover three orders of marine terraces are present, represented by abrasion surfaces separated by moderate erosion scarps. Theancient sea cliffs have been modifi ed by rock falls and by weathering processes; the rock falls led to the creation of wide semi-circular niches, The erosion processes, primed by the defi nitive emersion of the relief during the Early Pleistocene, led to the gradual dismantling of the Neogenic terrigenous deposits that had formerly covered the carbonatic substrata. The hydrographical system, which had originally developed on the clayey deposits, today completely eroded, is now superimposed on the carbonatic rocks as a consequence of the lowering of the base level.

Niscemi Grotto • The land where M. Pellegrino is situated can be divided into two parts:• Area A which is extended from Vergine Maria to the wood of Niscemi;• Area B which is more important for its historicity.• The caves of Niscemi Grottowere used for various reasons: its suitability as a refuge with all

its grottoes and caves, its closeness to the sea and the land, and its strategic military advantages. Numerous are the archaeological finds which have been discovered until today.

• The Palaeolithic graffiti found in Niscemi grotto, discovered in 1954 and recently cleaned, those found in the Engraving grotto or the Oxen grotto as well as the prehistoric sites of Grotta Addaura Caprara, Grotta Perciata and Grotta del Ferraro, where some human remains and mud vases were found.

• There are numerous remains testifying the presence of prehistoric permanent settlements during the first half of the Neolithic period, some of which were inhabited right up until the Punic and Roma times.

• Most of the items (pitchers, cups, vases, various ceramic fragments and fossilised bones) are all on shown in the Archaeological Museum of Palermo.

This is a Palaeolithic graffito which illustrate a HorseProbably these graffiti were carried by ferrous bodies