Trentino-South Tyrol
Lavini di Marco's fossil footprint association
Surface with dinosaur footprints
Description
With over a thousand footprints discovered so far, often arranged in long sequences spanning tens of metres, the Lavini di Marco ichnological site (entirely designated as a regional fossil) is one of the most important areas in the world for the study of the Early Jurassic, approximately 200 million years ago.
The tracks belong mainly to predatory theropods of varying sizes (ichnogenera Kayentapus, Grallator and Eubrontes), but also include sauropod footprints, among them those linked to the endemic ichnospecies Lavinipes cheminii. The prefix "ichno-" (from the Greek ἴχνος, "trace") is indeed used to describe the behaviour of organisms based solely on the fossilised traces they left behind.
Discovered in the late 1980s by Luciano Chemini, an amateur naturalist from Rovereto, the site has been the subject of systematic studies since 1992, thanks to the work of palaeontologists Giuseppe Leonardi, Paolo Mietto and Marco Avanzini. The deposit, of great scientific and educational value, is fully protected under provincial law no. 37 of 1983 and is today a destination for scholars, enthusiasts and tourists.
Classification and size comparison
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Theropoda and †Sauropoda
Geologic Time Scale
- ERA: Mesozoic
- PERIOD: Jurassic
- EPOCH: Lower Jurassic
- ETÀ: Hettangiano (201.4-199.5 Ma)
Dating to immediately after the Late Triassic mass extinctionand representing the first of the four stratigraphic stages that make up the Lower Jurassic, it is defined in stratigraphy by the disappearance of ammonites of the genus Psiloceras.
Site of discovery and in situ exhibition
Location of casts on display
Gallery
Left: Reconstructed aerial image of the "Chemini Collapse," the site's main corridor, home to approximately thirty individual tracks and footprints.
Right: Diagram of the main footprint tracks, associated with the probable dinosaur types that left them.
Some of the three-toed footprints found at the site. They were left by basal theropod dinosaurs, similar to Coelophysis and Dilophosaurus.
Photos by Giulio Malfer, Marco Nave, and Fabrizio Pedrazza.
3D model of one of the main tracks of the Chemini Colander, attributed to a sauropod dinosaur.
Bibliography:
- Avanzini M. & Petti F.M. (2008). Updating the dinosaur tracksites from the Lower Jurassic Calcari
Grigi Group (Southern Alps, Northern Italy). Studi trentini di scienze naturali, Acta geologica, 83:
289‐301. - Leonardi G. & Avanzini M. (1994). Dinosauri in Italia. Le Scienze, Quaderni, 76: 69‐81.
- Leonardi G. & Mietto P. (2000). Dinosauri in Italia: le orme giurassiche dei Lavini di Marco
(Trentino) e gli altri resti fossili italiani. 494 pp. Accademia editoriale, Pisa. - Petti F.M., Avanzini M., Antonelli M., Bernardi M., Leonardi G., Manni R., Mietto P., Pignatti J.,
Piubelli D., Sacco E. & Wagensommer A. (2020). Jurassic tetrapod tracks from Italy: a training
ground for generations of researchers. Journal of Mediterranean Earth Sciences, 12: 137-165.
Credits and acknowledgments
Thanks to Tiziano Straffelini, Michela Canali, and Alessandra Cattoi of the Fondazione Museo Civico di Rovereto for sharing the multimedia material used on this page.
Reproduction, distribution, or any other use is prohibited without prior authorization from the rights holders.