Commissions
Project 2003P: New procedures and technologies for underwater paleo-landscape reconstruction (NEPTUNE)
Details
Primary Lead: Gaia Mattei, Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, Italy
Co-Leads:
Claudia Caporizzo, Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, Italy
Ana Novak, Geological Survey of Slovenia and Department of Geology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Martin Seeliger, Department of Physical Geography, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
Livio Ronchi, Department of Geosciences, University of Padova, Italy
Aim: Neptune project started on March 30th, 2020 for the purpose of creating an interdisciplinary working group of young scientists aimed to develop multidisciplinary techniques to analyse and reconstruct past landscapes, presently submerged due to the postglacial sea-level rise. Special attention is paid to the technological content, considering that the recent technological innovation applied to geo-acoustic and remote sensing methods opened numerous new possibilities of high-resolution mapping of wide coastal areas, seabed morphologies, and underwater archaeological structures.
Introduction: The project is placed in the context of regional and local scale studies on coastal landscape changes over the last 12 millennia, by reconstructing submerged landscapes both on- and offshore, from the nearshore zone to the continental shelf. Such information is crucial to assess the potential impact of relative sea-level rise and to prepare the adaptation of coastal communities threatened by the changing climate. In this project, we would like to create a new platform to establish interdisciplinary trans-Mediterranean scientific collaborations between experts in archaeology, coastal geomorphology, and geoarchaeology, as well as experts in marine surveying in order to provide an optimal integration among geological, archaeological and modelling methods.
The aims of NEPTUNE are to propose:
i) a multidisciplinary approach to underwater paleo-landscape reconstruction by means of innovative technologies integrated with well-established methods;
ii) a methodological protocol for optimal high-resolution surveying suited to different bathymetric ranges, often corresponding to different time scales.
Our project closely concerns the scientific issues of interest to the CMP Commission as it aims to promote a discussion on the most promising innovative techniques and procedures for submerged landscape reconstructions in several areas in and around the Mediterranean, both during the workshops during the inter-congress period. Therefore, the workshops, favouring the meeting of researchers who actively study the Mediterranean, will be fundamental to start to fill these knowledge gaps.
Anticipated Outputs:
Article on Quaternary Perspectives
Special Issue on Quaternary International
Links to resources:
Website: https://dist.altervista.org/neptune/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NEPTUNEinqua/
Instagram page: will be available soon
Contact: Please email the Coastal and Marine Processes Commission ([email protected]) if you would like to be put in touch with the leaders of this project