Shallow-water clastic carbonates of the southwestern margin of Valdelsa Neogene Basin. Preliminary data on mid-Pliocene Warm Period in Southern Tuscany (Italy)

Upper Pliocene shallow-water carbonates of Southern Tuscany are relatively rare. The southwestern sector of the Valdelsa Basin provides good exposure of these carbonate bodies, which deposited during the climatic optimum of the “middle Pliocene” between 2.9 and 3.3 Ma. In the frame of the ongoing field survey for the geological mapping of the CARG Sheet-286 “Poggibonsi”, new measured sections, micropalaeontological and petrographic data were acquired. Preliminary data of the main faunal content, petrographic and lithologic-textural features of the carbonate bodies which outcrops in the study area are here reported. They show a development of lithofacies and faunal assemblages linked to forcing factors at local and global scale, such as tectonics, clastic supply, eustatic fluctuation and climate change. We discuss useful updating data on the mid-Pliocene Warm Period of one of Southern Tuscany’s wider and most interesting Neogene basins.