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The study of the past is of fundamental importance in understanding the processes that control the functioning of the Earth System and the interaction between ecosystems, human society and natural variability. The Quaternary scientist produces a variety of proxies derived from the investigation of natural, archaeological and historical records covering all time scales of the history of Planet Earth, including current dynamics, and with special focus to extend the calibrations to not instrumentally registe-red time spans. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted not only the vulnerability of our world but it also has made plain for all to see the critical role of humans. On the other hand, it has produced the unexpected conditions for a large-scale experiment on the impact of sudden reduced human activities, pointing to the potential for recovery of the natural environment. In this review, we examine how data from the recent past can provide tools to understand the events taking place today and to forecast their deve-lopments in the future.

Late Quaternary Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) changes can be investigated by analyzing marine sediments (gravity and box cores) collected on the continental shelves and along the continental margins of Antarctica. These sites are strongly influenced by the ice sheet/shelf sediment drainage and inflow/outflow of polar water masses. In this respect, the continental slope of the Western Ross Sea (WRS) is still poorly studied, in particular its history is affected by uncertainties due to the scarcity of well-preserved calcareous foraminifera preventing the production of reliable age models. We present the results of a study made on one gravity core (KI13-C2; Melis et al., 2021) and three box-cores (KI13-bc2, bc3 and bc4; Torricella et al., 2021) located on the Hallett Ridge and in the Central Basin where the presence of carbonate-rich intervals offers the opportunity, to time-reconstruct the AIS evolving changes since the Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 2. These intervals correlated with other carbonate layers identified in cores collected along the WRS continental slope provide important insights about a large-scale break-up of the ice shelf/sea ice system. This study has been conducted in the framework of the STREAM Project (Late Quaternary evolution of the ocean-ice sheet interactions: the record from the Ross Sea continental margin, Antarctica; period 2019-2021), funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the National Research Foundation of Korea, and thanks to a grant approved by the Department of Mathematics and Geoscience, University of Trieste. Bibliographic references Melis R., Capotondi L., Torricella F., Ferretti P., Geniram A., Hong J.K., Kuhn G., Khim B.-K., Kim S., Malinverno E., Yoo K.C. and Colizza E. (2021) - Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene: paleoceanography of the northwestern Ross Sea inferred from sediment core geochemistry and micropaleontology at Hallett Ridge. J. of Micropal., 40, 15-35. Torricella F., Melis R., Malinverno E., Fontolan G., Bussi M., Capotondi L., Del Carlo P., Di Roberto A., Geniram A., Kuhn G., Khim B.-K., Morigi C., Scateni B. and Colizza E. (2021) – Environmental and Oceanographic Conditions at the Continental Margin of the Central Basin, Northwestern Ross Sea (Antarctica) Since the Last Glacial Maximum. Geosciences, 11, 155.

The Italian Network for Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER-Italy) is currently made of 79 sites organized in 25 parent sites, distributed all over the Italian territory in terrestrial, freshwater, transitional and marine water environments; it also includes 7 extraterritorial sites in Antarctica and in the Himalayas LTER-Italy management is regulated according to a Statute that identify an Assembly of sites' managers, an elected Coordinator, a Coordination Committee, and a Technical-Scientific Secretariat. Its development and consolidation have been closely linked to that of LTER-Europe, to which the Network belongs since 2006. LTER-Italy researches are supported by numerous Scientific Institutions, Universities and Territorial Agencies. Furthermore, LTER-Italy has important connections with other European research infrastructures as well as with the Regional Authority. Its activities span over multiple scientific fields, with a socio-ecological approach on biodiversity, climate change, training and education and the environmental challenges that engage our society. LTER-Italy was conceived and implemented as a shared ecological research platform, which favors the comparison of results and the data conservation, with the aim of creating a wealth of information and observations accessible and usable for future generations. The members of LTER-Italy study ecosystems, their dynamics and their evolution, the relationships between biodiversity and ecological functionality, and the environmental responses to natural and anthropic drivers. Within this network, fruitful scientific collaborations are initiated and maintained, interdisciplinary activities and cross-sectional(dominion?) research on ecosystems are encouraged and the valorization of long-term ecological data is promoted. Since 2015, LTER Italia is working at the integration within the nascent eLTER-RI European infrastructure (European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure).

The Archivio di Studi Adriatici (ASA) is a repository of the Institute of Marine Sciences (ISMAR-CNR), developed with the aims to preserve and make accessible natural collections, heritage books, documents, and maps of the Institute of Marine Sciences.

Questo Rapporto tecnico rappresenta la sintesi dei contributi (abstract) presentati al primo incontro del Gruppo di Lavoro Dinamica del Paleoclima del CNR che si è svolto a Bologna nella sede del CNR dal 17-18 Giugno 2019. Questo incontro ha avuto come focus la storia e la dinamica del clima durante gli ultimi 150 mila anni: dalla penultima glaciazione del MIS 6 attraverso l'ultimo interglaciale, le oscillazioni rapide che scandiscono l'ultima glaciazione, le culminazioni dell'Ultimo Massimo Glaciale e la transizione climatica al presente interglaciale. Di estrema rilevanza sono gli eventi che caratterizzano l'Olocene fino alla storia più recente degli ultimi 2000 anni, che forniscono la prospettiva a lungo termine degli studi sul cambiamento in atto. La sincronizzazione e teleconnessione degli effetti del cambiamento climatico negli ambienti marini e continentali; le oscillazioni del livello del mare e le stime di temperatura utilizzando la vasta gamma di proxies marini e continentali (dai sedimenti marini agli speleotemi, varve, carote di ghiaccio e piante) sono di speciale interesse a tutte le scale geografiche.

Benthic foraminifera are a meiofaunal group of microorganisms that are particularly abundant in marine sediments. Their occurrence and distribution reflect environmental conditions in the bottom water and sediment surface layers (Murray, 2006 and references therein). Hence, this group has been recently proposed as a biomonitoring proxy to determine the Ecological Quality Status (Alve et al., 2009) both in Mediterranean and extra-Mediterranean areas (Bouchet et al., 2018 and references therein). In addition, their small shells are well preserved along the sediment record allowing us to reconstruct the historical evolution of particular areas, and thereby, to obtain insight into the baseline conditions preceding the present period of anthropogenic impact (Francescangeli et al., 2016; Romano et al., 2016). This unique foraminifera feature represents a clear advantage compared to (other) meiofaunal and/or macrofaunal organisms that are currently used in marine biomonitoring studies. Over the last decades, the use of these organisms in marine biomonitoring has largely increased. The interest in benthic foraminifera has partly been driven by government policies and programs aimed at developing suitable, non-invasive bioindicators of marine environmental quality. Here, we report some field-based research carried out along the Italian coasts.

Submarine geohazards, are exceptional events capable of producing large-volume turbidites that result from catastrophic slope failures and the associated downslope mass transport of enormous quantities of sediment from continental shelves and slopes to the deep sea. We are investigating the effects of italian earthquakes and tsunamis on the sedimentary record of the Ionian Sea, through a multi-proxy analysis of turbidite deposits. A comparison between radiometric dating and historical earthquake catalogs suggests that turbidite emplacement triggered by major earthquakes (i.e. AD 1908, 1693 and 1169) represents over 90% of the deposits during the last millennia (Polonia et al., 2013a; 2013b). Although the average recurrence time of single events is about 500 yrs, age modelling indicates that their occurrence is not periodic, but rather varies between 100 and 700 yrs, with clusters of higher frequency (Polonia et al., 2015). Seismic reflection images show that some turbidite beds are very thick and marked by acoustic transparent homogenite mud layers at their top. Based on a high-resolution study of the most recent of such megabeds, the Homogenite/Augias turbidite (Kastens and Cita, 1981; Cita and Aloisi, 2000; Hieke and Werner, 2000), we show that it was not triggered by the Santorini caldera collapse but by giant turbidity flows triggered by the AD 365 earthquake and tsunami (Polonia et al., 2013b; 2016). Backwash flows and related gravity-driven processes are the primary means of downslope sediment transport, confirming that the HAT is a unique instance of thick deep sea tsunami deposit. An older similar deep sea megaturbidite was deposited about 15,000 years BP, implying a large recurrence time of such extreme sedimentary events in the Mediterranean Sea. Marine sediments may thus be considered as seabed archives of paleo-earthquakes capable of reconstructing seismicity back in time, during several earthquake cycles.

The ROSSLOPE is an Italian Antarctic project approved in the framework of the PNRA. The investigation of the interactions among marine currents, sea floor morphology, sediment texture and benthic communities is crucial to understand the dynamics of depositional and erosive processes on present-day seafloor, and represents an important key to study the paleo-environmental variation of the southern antarctic and subantarctic areas. This project aims to investigate the relation between present and past water mass circulation from modern and late-Cenozoic sedimentary sequences of the Ross Sea outer shelf and continental slope of the area of Adare and Central Basins, and the area to the east of Pennell-Iselin Banks. The study will be performed through the comparison and integration of data concerning the circulation of the present dense, cold water masses produced in the Ross Sea (HSSW e ISW), with 1) measurements of physical-chemical-biotic characteristics of surface sediments (water-sediment interface) and within the top 5 meters beneath the seafloor, 2) the geo-morphological features of these areas, 3) benthic acoustic facies typically related both to bottomcurrent activity (i.e. sediment drifts) and to down-slope mass processes within the stratigraphic section. In these areas few and scattered geological, geophysical, oceanographic and morpho-bathymetric data exist. We propose to study these existing data. The data base is constituted of previous data of: 1) multibeam surveys collected during PNRA and USA geophysical cruises 2) single-channel and multichannel Italian and foreign seismic data available by the Seismic Data Library System 3) PNRA sediment box cores and cores of which most already studied for other purposes and others yet to be studied. Moreover new morpho-bathymetric and sub-bottom acoustic data together with cores and box cores will be collected. All results will be compared in a multidisciplinary way with oceanographic knowledge to provide a depositional model of the modern continental slope processes as a basis for paleoceanographic reconstructions.

We present a high-resolution paleoclimatic reconstruction of the last four millennia from a shallow water marine record recovered in the central Tyrrhenian Sea (Gulf of Gaeta) based on planktonic foraminifera and pollen records combined with oxygen stable isotope, tephrostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic analysis. Paleoclimatic events have been recognised and discussed within the following time in intervals: Eneolithic (base of the core- ca. 2410 BC), Early Bronze Age (ca. 2410 BC - ca. 1900 BC), Middle Bronze Age - Iron Age (ca. 1900 BC - ca. 500 BC), Roman Period (ca. 500 BC - ca. 550 AD), Dark Age (ca. 550 AD - ca. 860 AD), Medieval Climate Anomaly (ca. 860 AD - ca. 1250 AD), Little Ice Age (ca. 1250 AD - ca. 1850 AD), Industrial Period (ca. 1850 AD - ca. 1950 AD), Modern Warm Period (ca. 1950 AD - present day). Within these time intervals, the proxy records document short-term climate oscillations well correlated with other records from Mediterranean marine areas (Alboran Sea, Gulf of Taranto, Adriatic Sea, and Ionian Sea). The long term trend in oxygen isotopic record obtained from the planktonic foraminiferal species Globigerinoides ruber (?18OG.ruber) has an antithetic correlation with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) suggesting a strong northern hemisphere influence on the climate variability of the central Mediterranean region. The long term trend and amplitude oscillations of the ?18OG.ruber signal, the onset of main planktonic foraminiferal turnover from carnivorous to herbivorous-opportunistic species, and the consistent fluctuations of the pollen records document an important modification in climate system from the onset of the Roman Period up to the present-day. In addition, from ca. 500 AD upwards, the planktonic foraminiferal ?18O data, from marine records, shows a synchronous progressive long-term shift to more positive values superimposed to short-term oscillation, suggesting a Mediterranean secular scale signature in isotopic composition. From Maunder event to present day there is a progressive inversion in ?18O composition, suggesting the onset of the modern warm climate condition.

Già da vari decenni si è affermata nella comunità scientifica internazionale la consapevolezza che le Ricerche Ecologiche a Lungo Termine (LTER), che si svolgono sulla scala pluridecadale, sono uno strumento indispensabile per comprendere la variabilità naturale degli ecosistemi nel tempo e per determinare le relazioni fra le loro componenti biotiche e abiotiche. Dagli anni '90 si sono sviluppate e consolidate a livello globale le reti di siti di ricerca LTER. In questo contesto internazionale, nasce e si sviluppa anche la rete LTER-Italia, comprendente 25 siti terresti e acquatici con 80 stazioni di ricerca, distribuite su tutto il territorio nazionale. Il ruolo delle donne nella costituzione e nel coordinamento della rete italiana, nella gestione dei siti e nelle attività di ricerca è stato ed è di grande rilevanza. L'osservazione dei fenomeni naturali richiede competenza scientifica, rigore e notevoli energie, sia per la raccolta dei dati sia per la loro interpretazione. Storie di persone e progetti di ricerca dimostrano che, accanto a queste qualità, ve ne sono altre, altrettanto necessarie e spesso trascurate, che tendenzialmente appartengono in misura maggiore al mondo femminile: la capacità relazionale, la pazienza di perseguire obiettivi a lungo termine in un percorso spesso accidentato, e la sensibilità nel riconoscere i limiti umani nell'interpretare fenomeni intrinsecamente complessi e non lineari.

The Comenius Network STENCIL - Science Teaching European Network for Creativity and Innovation in Learning - is funded with support from the European Commission within the Lifelong Learning Programme, and has been running from 2011. STENCIL involves members from 9 different European countries: Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, Turkey, working together to the improvement of science teaching. STENCIL offers to science teachers, school leaders, policy makers and all practitioners in science education from all over Europe, a platform - www.stencil-science.eu - to encourage joined-up thinking and European cooperation.

The reconstruction of past ocean temperatures is fundamental to the study of past climate changes, therefore considerable effort has been invested in developing proxies for seawater temperatures. One of the most recent and promising new proxy is carbonate 'clumped isotope' thermometry, in particular because it is based on thermodynamic equilibrium and not on bio- geochemical proxies. Here, we present a new calibration of the 'clumped isotope' thermometer to foraminifera based on seven species of planktic and benthic foraminifera spanning a growth temperature range of 2-28 C. We used a newly developed technique for the measurements of small samples to improve the applicability of this method to paleoceanography. Our data have a comparable precision (0.005-0.013&) and confirm previous calibration studies based on biogenic and inorganic cal- cite. We discuss possible sources of uncertainty such as over-/underestimation of the calcification temperatures, species-spe- cific vital effects, pH variations between the seawater and the vacuole water of the species and possible kinetic effects on the 'clumped isotope' calibration. To validate our calibration study and test the applicability of our measuring technique to paleoclimate and paleoceano- graphic studies we measured the isotope composition of Globigerinoides ruber (white) at high-resolution in a sediment core covering the last 700 years in the Gulf of Taranto (Mediterranean Sea). The results show that it is necessary to average a rel- atively large number of analyses to achieve a consistent temperature signal for the detection of small sea surface temperature changes. Although with the current analytical system, 'clumped isotope' thermometry is only applicable to the analysis of rel- atively large SST changes in marine sediments, further technical improvements may make this a very powerful technique for paleoceanographic studies.