The quest for a Cambrian Adria: Revealing palynology investigations from Elba Island, Italy

Adria, while playing a central role during the Mesozoic-Cenozoic geodynamic evolution of the Mediterranean region, is also an archetypal example of a crustal block with an obscure Palaeozoic history and represents a challenge typical of some palaeogeographic reconstructions. In recent decades, incremental studies have focused on expanding specific palaeontological records, accumulating detrital geochronological data, and addressing geometrical issues related to palaeogeographic modeling, resulting in the proposal of different, and sometimes strongly contrasting, palaeogeographic reconstructions and interpretations. Here, we report the discovery of Palaeozoic palynomorphs in 96 samples collected from the polymetamorphic high-grade and high-pressure metasedimentary rocks cropping out on eastern Elba Island (northern Tyrrhenian Sea), representing one of the few exposures of the Palaeozoic basement of Adria. These findings not only allowed us to trace the chronology (minimum depositional age) of the sedimentary protoliths but also provided a unifying framework to integrate and reinterpret existing literature for reconstructing the palaeogeography of Adria back to the Cambrian.