La geologia dell'area di Pozzuolo del Friuli e gli affioramenti miocenici: storia delle ricerche e prospettive

Abstract - Isolated reliefs crops out in the upper Friulian Plain (Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region, NE Italy). The north-western portion of one of them, near Pozzuolo del Friuli, is made of Miocene sandstone. Geology and fossils collected in that sandstone had been studied between the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century, but definition of its exact age remained problematic. Stefanini (1915a, 1916, 1919) studied the fossils and dated the outcrops to the Langhian. In 1919, Stefanini erected a new echinoid species: Scutella forumjuliensis (recte Parascutella forumjuliensis) based on that sample. In this paper, we reappraise the geology of the sandstone and its fossil fauna, after an overview of the history of the researches. The briozoan Reussirella haidingeri is for the first time reported in the Southern Alps. Lithological and paleontological information and comparison with the Miocene sequences of the Veneto-Friuli Prealps allow dating the Pozzuolo sandstone to the Aquitanian.