Sergio Bonomo

• Geology
• Researcher at Italian National Research Council

A high-resolution record of central Mediterranean Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) based on the alkenone UK’37 index and planktic δ¹⁸O values for the surface-dweller G. ruber has been reconstructed across the Pliocene/Pleistocene transition at Monte San Nicola (Sicily), reference area for the GSSP (Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point) of th...

Extreme climate warmth (hyperthermal) events occur throughout the geologic record. In particular, several transient events are well documented for the early Eocene with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~56 Ma) standing as the major star. Yet, earlier short-lived (104–105 years) warming events, correlated with abrupt negative carbon isoto...

The present study focuses on calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy of the last 23 Myr in the Mediterranean region and is intended as a review paper in which an updated zonation is presented. This includes the improvements in biostratigraphic classification achieved in the last decades. The proposed biozonal scheme incorporates the biochronologic d...

An association between climatic conditions and asthma incidence has been widely assumed. However, it is unclear whether climatic variations have a fingerprint on asthma dynamics over long time intervals. The aim of this study is to detect a possible correlation of the Summer North Atlantic Oscillation (S-NAO) index and the self-calibrated palmer dr...

Calcareous nannofossils are the fossil equivalent of unicellular marine algae whose ecology and vital functions are driven by environmental parameters within the photic zone (e.g. temperature, salinity, sunlight and nutrient supply). High-resolution quantitative analyses were performed on the sediment core ND14Mbis collected in the northeastern par...

Benthic foraminiferal assemblages have been studied at 11 sediment surface samples located in the Neretva Channel covering the delta habitat and the adjacent open sea areas. The major objective of the investigation was to explore the main environmental parameters affecting the benthic foraminifera compositional changes. To this end, a statistical a...

A multiproxy study combining calcareous plankton assemblages (coccolithophore and planktonic foraminifera), terrestrial (n-alkanes) and marine (alkenones) biomarkers was carried out in a sediment core (ND14Q-AR2) from the South Adriatic Sea. The focus of the study is to investigate millennial-to-centennial scale climate variability in the Eastern M...

A high-resolution analysis is being conducted on a core recovered from the Marsili Basin (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea) at 3400 m of water depth. In this contribution, we present preliminary results on the distribution of calcareous nannofossils studied in the 5.7 m-long NDT_09 core, composed of hemipelagic muds, distal turbidites, tephra and volcanocla...

The Monte San Nicola area (Southern Sicily) offers a spectacular exposure of open-marine sediments that were employed in 1998 for defining the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) of the Gelasian Stage (Upper Pliocene). After the lowering of the Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary to ca. 2.6 Ma in 2010, the Gelasian GSSP has been redefined as the b...

A new marine pollen record from SE Sicily is presented. The pollen study was done at a sub-decadal resolution to assess the role and extent of human impact in driving regional environmental and land cover changes over the last four hundred years. The combination of palaeoecological evidence and historical documents provides a detailed report of the...

A high resolution study of calcareous nannofossils has been performed on samples from the Sapropel S1interval deposited in the North Ionian Sea, with the aim to assess the paleoenvironmental changes in the photic zone during this crucial interval in Mediterranean circulation. Calcareous nannofossil data have been integrated with planktonic foramini...

Coccolithophores were collected at 21 stations during summer 2016, from coastal and offshore areas of the Central Mediterranean Sea, to describe the ecology of the coccolithophore community integrating information on their abundance, environmental parameters (salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and fluorescence) and oceanographic data. Emilian...

We investigated the living (stained) and dead benthic foraminiferal assemblages collected in surface sediment samples (0–1 cm) from two different areas (JOIDES Basin and Mawson Bank) of the Ross Sea (Antarctica). Samples were collected during the BEDROSE oceanographic cruise from January to February 2017. Four living and dead benthic foraminiferal...

The coastal area located in front of the Volturno river estuary (the Gulf of Gaeta, central-eastern Tyrrhenian Sea) was synoptically sampled in seven surveys between June 2012 and October 2014. Vertical profiles of temperature and salinity were acquired on a high-resolution nearly-regular grid in order to describe the spatial and temporal variabili...

A marine sediment core from the western Mediterranean provides a new high-resolution 4500 year record of palaeomagnetic secular variation and relative palaeointensity. In 2013, the 7.1 m C5 core was recovered from the Tyrrhenian Sea as part of the NextData climate data project. The coring site, 15 km offshore from the Volturno river mouth, is well...

An association between climatic conditions and asthma mortality has been widely assumed. However, it is unclear whether climatic variations have a fingerprint on asthma dynamics over long time intervals. The aim of this study is to detect a possible correlation between climatic indices, namely the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and Pacific Deca...

Abstract New information on palaeoenvironmental conditions over the past ~2700 years in the Central Mediterranean Sea have been acquired through the high-resolution study of calcareous nannofossils preserved in the sediment core SW104-ND14Q recovered in the Southern Adriatic Sea (SAS) at 1013-m water depth. The surface water properties at this open...

A review of the climatic variability over the last two millennia based on oxygen stable isotopic (δ18OG. ruber) signals from different areas of the Mediterranean Basin (Minorca Basin, central and south Tyrrhenian Sea, Taranto Gulf, south Adriatic Sea and Israel) has been proposed. The correlation of data testifies an almost synchronicity of the ide...

A new high-resolution pollen record, spanning the last five millennia, is presented from the Gulf of Gaeta (Tyrrhenian Sea, central Italy), with the aim of verifying if any vegetation change occurred in the central Mediterranean region in relation to specific well-known global and/or regional climate events, including the 4.2 ka event, the Medieval...

Coccolithophore were collected and analyzed at 10 stations during summer 2010, from coastal and offshore areas off the eastern Libyan coast (southern Mediterranean Sea). The results were compared with oceanographic data. Total coccosphere concentrations, associated with nutrient-depleted stratified waters, show good correlation with the summer data...

Oceanographic processes play a key role in influencing the structure of the marine planktonic ecosystems. Taking advantage of the quasi-simultaneous collection of a large ichthyoplanktonic dataset in different regions of the Central Mediterranean Sea (Italian/Maltese, Tunisian and Libyan waters), this study aimed at the identification of the main e...

The analyses of water and sediment samples, collected at 24 marine stations in a coastal area (Gulf of Gaeta, central Tyrrhenian Sea) during a three year survey (2012-2014), have improved our knowledge of coccolithophore ecology in the Mediterranean neritic domain. A comparison between the results and the oceanographic data has highlighted the ecol...

Rationale: The global environment has been facing large changes during the last century, which can also affect respiratory health with increased asthma frequency worldwide. According to McCabe et al. (2014), spatial and temporal variances in multidecadal drought frequency over the contiguous US are attributable to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillat...

Living benthic foraminiferal assemblages were investigated at 22 marine stations in front of the Volturno River mouth (Gulf of Gaeta, central Tyrrhenian Sea), during 3-years survey (2012–2014). The results were compared with the oceanographic data recorded at the same sites, to highlight the ecology of the main dominant species and the relationship...

Vengono presentati i risultati dell’attività di monitoraggio svolta nel corso del progetto PONa3_00363 I-AMICA (Infrastruttura di Alta tecnologia per il Monitoraggio Integrato Climatico-Ambientale; www.i-amica.it/i-amica/), nell’ambito delle attività relative all’Obiettivo Realizzativo 4.4 (Processi di interfaccia biosfera-idrosfera e funzionalità...

Paleoclimatic data are essential for fingerprinting the climate of the earth before the advent of modern recording instruments. They enable us to recognize past climatic events and predict future trends. Within this framework, a conceptual and logical model was drawn to physically implement a paleoclimatic database named WDB-Paleo that includes the...

The report includes and examines the list of taxonomists from IAMC (Institute for Coastal Marine Environment), IGG (Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources), ISE (Institute of Ecosystem Study), and ISMAR (Institute of Marine Sciences), who responded to the Taxonomy Census 2016, their scientific publications and the number of taxa described new...

We present data on distribution patterns of living coccolithophores at 18 selected hydrographic stations, and oceanographic measurements collected at 68 stations during the TIR09 cruise carried out on board of R/V Urania in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea (central part of the Mediterranean Sea) during summer 2009. The survey enabled us to provide indic...

Vengono presentati i risultati dell’attività di monitoraggio svolta nel corso del progetto PONa3_00363 I-AMICA (Infrastruttura di Alta tecnologia per il Monitoraggio Integrato Climatico-Ambientale; www.i-amica.it/i-amica/), nell’ambito delle attività relative all’Obiettivo Realizzativo 4.4 (Processi di interfaccia biosfera-idrosfera e funzionalità...

Marine deposits of the Palermo Plain were historically relevant for the Quaternary Period definition. Here we show lithostratigraphic, biostratigraphic and chronostratigraphic data collected on three boreholes in the Palermo historical centre that recovered 36.8, 42.0 and 52.0 metres of sediments overlying the Numidian Flysch. Marine sedimentary se...

A new high resolution pollen, planktonic foraminiferal and oxygen isotopes record from a shallow water marine sedimentary core from the central Tyrrhenian Sea (Gulf of Gaeta) provides information on vegetation and climate changes occurred in the central Mediterranean region during the last 5000 cal. years BP (Margaritelli et al., 2016). Nine tim...

Fish larvae data collected in year 2009 were used to examine the effects of particular environmental conditions on the structure of larval assemblages in two oligotrophic Mediterranean areas (the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea and the Strait of Sicily). For this purpose, relationships with environmental variables (temperature, salinity and fluorescence),...

This paper reports on the first study on the ichthyoplankton community structure in the Gulf of Sirte and its spatial distribution in relation to environmental conditions and zooplankton abundance. The results make an important contribution to the future management of fisheries in this unexplored, but much exploited, area. Biological samples were c...

Recent studies demonstrated that the Mediterranean continental shelf and, especially, the delta areas provide one of the most complete archive for monitoring the palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic changes occurring in the last millennia. This work based on marine paleo proxies is aimed at documenting high-resolution time-series (decadal to cent...

A new high resolution pollen and planktonic foraminiferal record from a shallow water coastal marine core (water depth 83 meters) collected in the Gulf of Gaeta (Tyrrhenian Sea, central Italy), provides information on the complex relations among natural vegetation development, climate changes, and human impact on ecosystems in an historically dense...

A new high resolution pollen and planktonic foraminiferal record from a shallow water coastal marine core (water depth 83 meters) collected in the Gulf of Gaeta (Tyrrhenian Sea, central Italy), provides information on the complex relations among natural vegetation development, climate changes, and human impact on ecosystems in an historically dense...

A new high resolution pollen and planktonic foraminiferal record from a shallow water coastal marine core (water depth 83 meters) collected in the Gulf of Gaeta (Tyrrhenian Sea, central Italy), provides information on the complex relations among natural vegetation development, climate changes, and human impact on ecosystems in an historically dens...

Palaeontological evidences of autochthonous deep-water echinoids are so rare that the well-preserved assemblage herein described from the Plio-Pleistocene of Capo Milazzo (NE Sicily) provide an important opportunity to investigate the biodiversity of the bathyal echinoids in the Mediterranean late Cenozoic. The low diversity fauna studied is domina...

We hereby present the distribution pattern of living and surface sediment coccolithophores, the main phytoplankton calcifying group, from 22 stations set in a neritic environment (from 10 to 50 m depth), adjacent to the shelf area of the Volturno river mouth (Gulf of Gaeta - central part of the Tyrrhenian Sea). The survey conducted in June 2012 inc...

We present the distribution pattern of living and surface sediment coccolithophores, the main phytoplankton calcifying group, from 22 stations set in a neritic environment (from 10 to 50 m water depth), adjacent to the shelf area of the Volturno River mouth (Gulf of Gaeta - central part of the Tyrrhenian Sea). The survey conducted in June 2012 incl...

This paper analyzes for the first time the water masses circulation in the Gulf of Syrte (Libya) and along a Sicily–Libya transect (central Mediterranean Sea) based on a new dataset of hydrological and nutrients data. The collected dataset highlights the presence of three main water masses with different chemical–physical features: Atlantic Water,...

La campagna oceanografica I-AMICA_2013_01, svoltasi dal 29 gennaio al 11 febbraio 2013, costituisce una parte integrante delle attività di ricerca previste dall’Obiettivo Realizzativo OR4 - Attività 4.4 (Processi interfaccia biosfera idrosfera e funzionalità degli ecosistemi costieri) del Progetto PON03 di potenziamento strutturale I-AMICA (Infrast...

The northeastern part of Sicily is characterized by intense seismic activity. Several systems of faults have been recognized in Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments in the area and, in fact, estimates of uplift rates are among the highest recorded in Sicily and south Italy. We examined calcareous nannofossil and benthic and planktonic foraminifera as...

The Gulf of Sirte is a largely unexplored area in the southernmost Mediterranean Sea. We are presenting here 2008 summer data on the distribution pattern of living coccolithophores, a main phytoplankton calcifying group, in 105 samples from 20 stations. The survey includes coastal and offshore stations, enabling us to provide indications on the dyn...

Here we present the biostratigraphic and chronostratigraphic framework of a number of selected diatomaceous laminated intervals from the Crotone Basin (Calabria, Southern Italy). These layers, which we consider correlative to the Eastern Mediterranean Sapropel Layers, range in age from the early Piacenzian to the Gelasian, and show surprising thick...

Mesopelagic fish represent one of the most important links in the food chain of the marine ecosystem. Their abundance in the Mediterranean sea makes them the most important members of the deep water fauna and a potential resource for future fisheries. The aim of this work is the study of the spatial distribution, composition and biomass of mesopela...

Benthic foraminifera are very sensitive to oceanographic parameter variations, to which they rapidly response through changes in the abundance and/or richness of their associations and in morphological variations of their shell. Many studies have used benthic foraminifera as bioindicators. We investigated recent benthic foraminiferal assemblages in...

The Little Ice Age (LIA) is the last episode of a series of Holocene climatic anomalies. There is still little knowledge on the response of the marine environment to the pronounced cooling of the LIA and to the transition towards the 20th century global warming. Here we present decadal-scale coccolithophore data from four short cores recovered from...

The Mediterranean Sea acts as a miniature ocean with the development of its own conveyor belt. It constitutes an ideal location to study and forecast how the marine environment responds to rapid climatic change. Here we present a palaeoenvironmental study carried out on the sediments of ODP Site 963, recovered in the Sicily Channel, the sill which...

We present a thorough review of the knowledge on the climate and environment in Sicily over the last 20 000 years, taking into account results of several studies carried using terrestrial and marine records. We obtain a coherent framework of the most important changes succeeded in the island, even if some points need further investigation. All the...

The environment of the central Mediterranean Sea is investigated on the basis of high-resolution planktonic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil data (mean sampling resolutions of about 80 and 160yr, respectively). MIS 5 is characterized by warm, oligotrophic and stratified waters, while coccolithophore communities developed a vertical zonation...

The Little Ice Age (LIA) is the last episode of a series of Holocene climatic anomalies. There is still little knowledge on the response of the marine environment to the pronounced cooling of the LIA and to the transition towards the 20th century global warming. Here we present decadal-scale coccolithophore data from four short cores recovered from...

AMBIENTE E CLIMA DELLA SICILIA DURANTE GLI ULTIMI 20 MILA ANNI Alessandro Incarbona1, Mauro Agate1, Giuseppe Arisco1, Sergio Bonomo2, Giuseppe Buccheri1, Carolina Di Patti1, Enrico Di Stefano1, Antonino Greco1, Giuliana Madonia1, Federico Masini1, Daria Petruso1, Luca Sineo3, Rodolfo Sprovieri1, Giovanni Surdi1, Giuseppe Zarcone1 1Dipartimento di G...

Coccolithophores are unicellular planktonic algae belonging to the phylum Haptophyta, and have been one of the most important contributors to calcium carbonate production in the oceans since the Middle-Late Mesozoic. They are attracting growing attention in the light of their potentiality in evaluating the response of marine organisms' calcificatio...

A series of recent studies shed light on the central Mediterranean, and Sicily, climate and environment, starting from the last glacial maximum (about 20 ka cal BP). In the present paper, we examine most of these works, in order to unravel environmental changes of the past, mainly in terms of temperature, atmospheric pattern, precipitation, vegetat...

The Mediterranean Sea acts as a miniature ocean with the development of its own conveyor belt. It constitutes an ideal location to study and forecast how the marine environment responds to rapid climatic change. Here we present a palaeoenvironmental study carried out on the sediments of ODP Site 963, recovered in the Sicily Channel, the sill which...

This research pointed out geochemical variations of major, minor and trace element contents (yttrium an .0d REE) related to transition between Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 6 and MIS 5e, along the marine sequence from the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 160 Site 963 (Central Mediterranean Sea) (37˚ 02.148'N, 13˚ 10.686'E; 480m depth). The...

Quantitative analyses on over 2300 samples were carried out on late Quaternary calcareous nannofossil assemblages from a central Mediterranean Sea sedimentary sequence (ODP Site 963A). Our results indicate that Emiliania huxleyi dominated the assemblages between 0 and 45.7 kyr BP; Gephyrocapsa muellerae between 45.7 and 177.3 kyr BP; small Gephyroc...

A sedimentary sequence spanning Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 to MIS 2 in core LC07, recovered in the central Mediterranean, has been investigated in order to produce a high-resolution paleoceanographic reconstruction. The changes in productivity deduced from calcareous plankton relative abundances and independently confirmed by the BaXS fluctuation...

The calcareous nannofossil assemblages of Ocean Drilling Program Hole 963D from the central Mediterranean Sea have been investigated to document oceanographic changes in surface waters. The studied site is located in an area sensitive to large-scale atmospheric and climatic systems and to high- and low-latitude climate connection. It is characteriz...

Quantitative analysis of 67 calcareous nannofossil assemblages from surface sediments recovered in a wide area across the Sicily Channel has been carried out in order to improve the interpretation of palaeontological data based on this planktonic group in a key area for Mediterranean palaeoceanographic studies. The investigation focused on three ca...

The calcareous nannofossil assemblages of Ocean Drilling Program Hole 963D from the central Mediterranean Sea have been investigated to document oceanographic changes in surface waters. The studied site is located in an area sensitive to large-scale atmospheric and climatic systems and to high- and low-latitude climate connection. It is characteriz...

A high-resolution quantitative analysis of the calcareous planktonic assemblages (planktonic foraminifers and calcareous nannofossils) at the Punta Piccola section (at the base of which, the global standard stratotype-section and point of the Piacenzian stage is defined) provided a more accurate biostratigraphy for the Mediterranean middle Pliocene...

High-resolution cyclostratigraphy and calcareous plankton astrobiochronology have been obtained from the latest Langhian to the earliest Tortonian of the Mediterranean. The investigated areas (Malta, Tremiti, and Sicily) are located in different geological settings, and the three studied sections show different cyclicity. Direct correlation between...