The travertine quarries located north of the town of Alcamo are a very important site for palaeontology both because the travertine dates back to the Pleistocene and because it has interesting geological and morphogeological characteristics; thanks to the large number of fossil finds discovered, it gives the possibility of reconstructing the geological events of this area.
Since the early 1900s, curious fossil remains/bones from the Alcamo travertine quarries were collected and brought to the University of Palermo. A box containing these finds is kept in the paleontological museum of Palermo and shows the provenance as Cava di Fontana della Pietra. Thousands instead are the limestone spheres collected over the years of the quarrymen and used to make curious "souvenirs"; only the more recent discovery of the cast of the carapace of a large turtle has allowed us to associate these "strange" calcareous spheres with what they actually are, casts of giant turtle eggs, often found in the natural position of deposition, that is, collected in clusters. At the end of 1984, in fact, in the quarry of the "Siciltravertino" cooperative in the "gammara" district, the imprint or cast of the carapace of a large turtle, Geochelone sp, 1.15 meters long and some eggs was found: these two fossil finds are kept in the Gaetano Giorgio Gemmellaro Museum of paleontology and geology in Palermo. The tortoise, also present in the Pleistocene of Malta, recalls those that still live in large numbers in Aldabra, a large atoll and protected nature reserve, located near the Seychelles.
The Alcamo geosite has also led to the discovery of the skeleton of a dwarf elephant, Elephas falconeri, (and also of its tusks, teeth, and skulls); in 1985 Professor Giorgio Belluomini, expert of the C.N.R., using the method of racemization of the amino acids on the teeth of the fossil, discovered that this dwarf elephant dates back to 260,000 years ago.
In the travertine were also discovered specimens of giant dormouse, red deer, Cervus elaphus, and wild boar, Sus scrofa, conserved in the Museo Civico Torre di Ligny in Trapani.[8]
The site made it possible to establish the exact dating of the Elephas in Sicily because the remains of a medium-sized elephant, the Elephas mnaidriensis, were discovered in a crack in the travertine, with paleosoil inside. dwarf elephant.
Translated by Google •
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