Provenance of stones employed in building the Badia Morronese (L'Aquila, Italy)

Mineralogical, petrographic, paleontological and geochemical studies were carried out to characterize the limestone used as the building stone of the Badia Morronese (XIII century A.D.) near Sulmona (L' Aquila, Italy). Comparison between 19 samples from the monument and 63 samples of formations outcropping around the Valle Peligna, collected from documented, recognizable or suspected quarries and natural outcrops, revealed that the building stone show petrographic characters and fossil content similar to those of the Calcari Cristallini Fm (Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene). The provenance of the stone for the monument from quite small areas is supported by the homogeneity of determined trace element contents and carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions, which are substantially close to those of samples collected at Colle Mitra (Sulmona)