I paleositi a vertebrati fossili della Provincia di Pisa

An exaustive picture of the fossil vertebrate paleosites of the Province of Pisa is presented. The data for this study have been collected from bibliography, from the archives of paleontological museums, from surveys in the field and personal observations of the authors. Some of these data have already been used to realize a computer database and a map of the paleosites, carried out by the authors in collaboration with the Province of Pisa. Sixty-seven fossil bearing localities have been mapped. They are not uniformly distributed on the territory but concentrated in six areas more or less delimited. The fossiliferous sediments cover a stratigraphic interval ranging from the middle Triassic to the late Pleistocene on the whole. The fossil specimens found in the mapped paleosites are both marine vertebrates (fishes, cetaceans, sirenians, pinnipeds and chelonians) and continental vertebrates (mammals, reptiles and amphibians). Finally, the mapped sites have been evaluated, applying a criterion based on the scientific, historical, turistic and didactic importance of each site. Agnano, Orciano Pisano, and Volterra are the sites getting the best score according with this criterion of evaluation