Revision of the Neogene and Pleistocene of the Gargano region (Apulia, Italy). The marine and continental successions and the mammal fauna assemblages in an area between Apricena and Poggio Imperiale (Foggia).

New stratigraphic data on the Pliocene and Pleistocene sedimentary evolution of the region between Apricena and Poggio Imperiale (Foggia, Italy) are presented. A succession of shallow water carbonates unconformably overlies Mesozoic carbonates. The Neogene succession was deposited by a regional transgression that followed a long period of sub-aerial exposure during which an extensive karst landscape developed in the Mesozoic carbonate platform; the karst cavities were flled by abundant deposits of partially reworked residual sediments ("terre rosse") that contain a rich endemic continental vertebrate fauna (the «Microtia fauna») attributed to the interval between the Late Miocene and the Early Pliocene. This fauna is the remnant of an endemic fauna that inhabited a much larger bioprovince during the Miocene. During the Late Pliocene deposition was strongly influenced by the structural setting of the Mesozoic succession, forming a system of horsts and grabens. Pliocene sediments are characterized by structural high-, structural low- and slope-facies. The succession deposited on the structural highs is thin (10-15 m), and consists of calcarenites and massive micrites. ln the slope zones there are some chaotic deposits produced by mass transport. In the structural lows, a succession of calcilutites, micritic limestones, and calcarcnites with high bioclast contents accumulated, reaching thicknesses greater than 50 m. The Pliocene carbonate succession underwent a complex series of deformations, as is shovm by the presence of normal faulls attributable to at least three deformational phases. During an interval that probably extended from the end of the Pliocene to the beginning oF the Pleistocene, a marine and coastal siliciclastic succession was deposited. The arrival of terrigenous clastic sediments indicates that important paleogeographic changes had occurred, as a result of the migration of the Apennine fronts towards the Apulian foreland. During the late Early Pleistocene, a karst network developed along the contact between the Mesozoic and Pliocene succession, in some areas expanding and deepening at the expense of the preexisting karst network, which was partially or completely emptied of the "terre rosse" filling. The network was filled by continental sandy-clayey sediments that record a complex series of depositional events, and which contain a rich continental vertebrate assemblage that is especially important for the definition of the bioevents that characterize the end of the Villafranchian (latest Early Pleistocene). The cavities also contain discontinuous fill from two subsequent, less important depositional cycles.