PaleoValRis Development of an innovative tool for the VALorization of the PALEOntological heritage in Tuscany as a naturalistic and cultural RESource. The case study of the Grosseto province and its Miocene faunas.

During the past three decades, paleontology has experienced a significant increase in global interest, driven in large part by the influence of films and documentaries that have brought it back to the centre of public attention. This renewed enthusiasm has allowed the scientific community, which had remained unheard of for decades, to highlight the many challenges involved in managing paleontological heritage. Indeed, every year thousands of square kilometres of land are involved in urban expansion projects, leveled for agriculture or exploited for quarrying. Therefore, it seems clear that the paleontological heritage, by its nature inextricably linked to the sediments that contain it, is constantly at risk of being irreparably damaged. The present study attempts to address some of the many issues related to the management and protection of paleontological assets in Italy. Different methodologies have been used, ranging from the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and analytical methods for the characterisation of fossiliferous sites to the use of traditional morphometrics, multivariate statistics, and phylogenetic analyses for the enhancement of paleontological assets. The study was therefore divided into five parts that are distinct but complementary to each other. The introductory part analyses the state-of-the-art in paleontological heritage management and protection starting from international policy and UNESCO directives and analysing in detail the evolution of the three main areas of natural heritage protection: geoconservation, geodiversity, and geoheritage. The second section of the introduction provides an in-depth historical overview of how the protection of paleontological heritage has evolved in Italy. This chapter highlights the many legislative and administrative challenges that have affected the safeguarding of paleontological heritage since the country's unification. Despite the numerous laws that have been enacted in favour of the protection of cultural heritage, paleontological remains occupy only a marginal part or are often subordinate to other categories (eg., archaeology). The chapter also emphasizes the efforts that the scientific community has been making for decades to sensibilize institutions to take action and updateexisting legislation. Among these, the National Geoportal Project for Archaeology represents a first step toward a more wise management of Italy's paleontological heritage. The project was created with the aim of defining a single national access point to archaeological (and paleontological) data distributed throughout the Italian territory, making their protection easier and more efficient, through the improvement of information access tools. The data collected in this study will then be implemented within the Geoportal. The second part of this study represents the core of the project. Paleontological heritage rarely receives the same legislative attention as archaeological heritage. Part of the problem seems to be, at least in some contexts (such as Italy), the difficulty of recognising fossils as distinct assets from other cultural assets and the lack of expertise among administrative officials. This study aims to describe and test an objective analytical operational procedure that can allow the assessment of the significance of any fossil site and its potential vulnerability in its current state. Estimates were obtained using several quantitative and qualitative parametres that can describe the probability of fossil recovery for each site (Pr) and the scientific and cultural interest of the locality (In). The product of probability and interest results in the scientific value (S), usually expressed as a percentage (S*). The vulnerability index (V) of productive and active sites considers land use (U) and natural erosion (E). The parametres were designed to be applied to any type of fossil site. The indices were tested on 22 localities (including 7 with trace fossils and 15 with direct evidence of fossil remains). The results show that the proposed indices describe and characterise each locality well. The proposed analytical method was then applied again to the paleontological heritage of a specific territory, in this case a province, to test its effectiveness in larger and more complex contexts and thus serve as a basis for planning paleontological heritage management actions in relation to land development and land use. The province of Grosseto was selected as the study area due to the variety, abundance, and importance of its paleontological sites. A total of 147 unevenly distributed sites were identified, covering a time span from the Lower Carboniferous to the Upper Pleistocene and including marine and continental organisms (invertebrates and vertebrates) and even plant remains. Thus, the proposed methodology was applied to 98 of the 147 sites. For each site, a brief description of the lithology, fossiliferouscontent, and historical significance was provided, with a review of its touristic potential and vulnerabilities. It can be observed that the sites are mainly gathered in four areas that allow for more effective monitoring and surveillance of the area with the establishment of geoparks and nature reserves. Almost half of the sites (46 out of 98) have a rather low scientific value. In fact, most of the sites are little known, are small in size, small in size, and/or have yielded only a limited number of fossils. The scientifically and culturally most relevant sites are Trasubbie 1B, Baccinello-1, La Pavolona, Arcille, Poggetti Vecchi, and Grotta dei Santi. Regarding vulnerability, fortunately, most of the sites do not require immediate interventions. However, four different sites, Trasubbie 1B, La Pavolona, Baccinello-1, and Arcille, require more attention. In particular, the site of Arcille site, since it is located in a quarry that is still active, requires immediate action from the appropriate agencies to prevent the loss of important fossil remains. Finally, the last part of this study is devoted to enhancing the paleontological heritage of the province of Grosseto. Here, three studies focusing on Miocene carnivores from the Baccinello-Cinigiano basin are presented. In the first study, new dental remains of a medium-sized otter (subfamily Lutrinae) from the late Miocene of Baccinello and Casteani (Tuscany) are reported, improving the scarce fossil record of the subfamily in Europe. Tyrrhenolutra helbingi Hürzeler, 1987 is a poorly known species described on a few dental remains from the Baccinello mines and a few other localities. Due to its peculiar morphology, it has often been neglected in scientific literature. The description of material preserved at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Basel and the Museum of Geology and Paleontology at the University of Florence offers new insights into the intraspecific variability and dental morphology of this taxon. The comparative study of these specimens reveals several morphological and biometric similarities between T. helbingi and Paludolutra maremmana Hürzeler, 1987, allowing these taxa to be redefined as Tyrrhenolutra maremmana nov. comb. A total-evidence cladistic analysis was performed to confirm the morphometric and morphological similarities between T. 'helbingi' and 'P' maremmana. The resulting parsimony analyses support synonymy, ruling out a close relationship of T. maremmana with the genus Paludolutra from Italy and Spain, as previously believed. In addition, a long-forgotten hypothesis, identifying Limnonyx