Biostratigrafia a foraminiferi del Cretaceo Superiore della successione di Parco Priore (Calcare di Altamura, Piattaforma Apula, Italia Meridionale)

This study focuses on the biostratigraphic analysis of an Upper Cretaceous 57 m-thick stratigraphic sedimentary succession outcropping in a quarry at Parco Priore, near the city of Altamura in the Murge (Southern Italy). In the studied area the Upper Cretaceous shallow water carbonate successions represent restricted facies deposited in inner shelf settings within the Apulian Platform (sensu D’Argenio, 1974). During the Mesozoic, the Apulian Platform was one of the peri-adriatic platforms (D’Argenio, 1974) localized along the southern margin of the Tethys. These platforms have been often compared to the presentday Bahamas islands for their general shape, size, subsidence rates as well as their inner platform architecture (Bernoulli, 2001). The studied sedimentary succession, belonging to the Calcare di Altamura formation, is mainly characterised by bedded white-reddish bioclastic, often re-crystallised or dolomitised, mudstones/ wackestones. White-grey calcarenitic and calcisiltitic bedded limestones and thin bedded palaeosoil levels are also present. The micropalaeontological assemblage is dominated by benthic foraminifers (Accordiella conica, Cuneolina pavonia, Moncharmontia apenninica, Minouxia conica, Rotorbinella scarsellai, Dicyclina schlumbergeri, Murgeina apula, Cuneolina spp., Pseudolituonella sp., Aeolisaccus kotori, miliolids, textularids) and dasycladacean algae (mainly Thaumatoporella parvovesiculifera). This benthic association allows to refer the Parco Priore succession to the Coniacian‒lower Campanian time interval. Sedimentological, lithological and micropalaeontological characteristics of the studied succession point to a low-energy inner carbonate platform setting with occasional subaerial exposures. [Upper Cretaceous benthic foraminiferal biostratigraphy of Parco Priore (Calcare di Altamura formation, Apulian Platform, southern Italy)]