Els Casots (Subirats, Catalonia), a key site for the Miocene vertebrate record of Southwestern Europe

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Authors	CASANOVAS-VILAR Isaac GARCÉS Miguel MARCUELLO Álex ABELLA Juan MADURELL-MALAPEIRA Joan JOVELLS-VAQUÉ Sílvia CABRERA Lluís GALINDO Jordi BEAMUD Elisabet LEDO Juan José QUERALT Pilar MARTÍ Anna SANJUAN Josep MARTÍN-CLOSAS Carles JIMÉNEZ-MORENO Gonzalo HERNÁNDEZ LUJÁN Ángel VILLA Andrea DEMIGUEL Daniel SÁNCHEZ Israel M. ROBLES Josep M. FURIÓ Marc OSTENDE Lars W. Van den Hoek SÁNCHEZ-MARCO Antonio SANISIDRO Óscar VALENCIANO Alberto GARCÍA-PAREDES Israel ANGELONE Chiara PONS-MONJO Guillem AZANZA Beatriz DELFINO Massimo BOLET Arnau GRAU-CAMATS Montserrat VIZCAÍNO-VARO Víctor MORMENEO David KIMURA Yuri MOYA-SOLA Salvador ALBA David M.
Year of publication	2022
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	Historical Biology
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Science
Citation
web	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2022.2043296?journalCode=ghbi20
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2022.2043296
Keywords	Miocene Climatic Optimum; fossil vertebrates; taphonomy; palaeoenvironment; Valles-Penedes Basin; Spain
Description	Els Casots is one of the richest fossil vertebrate sites of the Valles-Penedes Basin (Catalonia, Spain). It was discovered in 1989 and excavated briefly during the 1990s, resulting in the recovery of thousands of remains and the erection of several new mammal species. Excavations were resumed in 2018 and continue to date. Here we provide updated results regarding the age, stratigraphy, biota and palaeoenvironment of the site. The age of the site is well constrained to similar to 15.9 Ma thanks to recent bio- and magnetostratigraphic data, thus coinciding with the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO). The stratigraphic succession at the site area indicates lacustrine to palustrine environments with cyclically oscillating water level. There are several fossiliferous layers that have yielded a vertebrate fauna comprising up to 75 different vertebrate species including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mostly mammals. The finding of several articulated partial skeletons indicate that the site records an autochthonous to parautochthonous assemblage. The abundance and completeness of the vertebrate remains together with a well-constrained age and detailed stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental data, make els Casots a key site for understanding wetland ecosystems in southern Europe during the MCO.
Related projects:	Postdoc@MUNI