5PC - The fossil plant record of Sardinia. Field Guidebook of the 9th EPPC, Sardinia 1-4 Sept. 2014

The excursion will touch some of the sections where to collect plant fossil remains of Carboniferous, Permian and Jurassic deposits. To gather a fossil plant collection from the Miocene lacustrine sections is today very difficult because the artificial lake for water supply, such as the Omodeo Lake, has submerged the “Fossil Forest of Zuri” with its silicified trunks 12-15 m high and more than a meter in diameter and, furthermore, the stratigraphy of fill Miocene lacustrine basins is at present, for the most, hidden by the development of intensively cultivated fields. New findings of fossil plants are actually retrieved when canals for water distribution have been excavated in the interested areas. The “Foresta Fossile” of the Perfugas-Martin basin, and the “Foresta Fossile of Zuri” that are protected by a severe regional and national laws are, ironically, self-endangered.