Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.

Sec. Paleontology

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1558428

Taphonomy and whale-fall analysis of the Tortonian baleen whales from the Stirone River, Emilia Romagna (northern Italy)

Provisionally accepted
Michelangelo Bisconti Michelangelo Bisconti 1*Paola Monegatti Paola Monegatti 2Gianluca Raineri Gianluca Raineri 3Giandonato Tartarelli Giandonato Tartarelli 4Giorgio Carnevale Giorgio Carnevale 1
  • 1 Department of Earth Sciences, School of Nature Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
  • 2 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy, Parma, Italy
  • 3 Museo 'Mare antico e biodiversità', San Nicomede, Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy
  • 4 Normal School of Pisa, Pisa, Tuscany, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The taphonomy of three balaenopterid skeletons is examined in order to describe the traces left by whale fall communities. The whale specimens include two partial skeletons and an isolated periotic; one of the partial skeletons is the holotype of Plesiobalaenoptera quarantellii, while the other two specimens represent two indeterminate balaenopterid species. The partially articulated skeletons were affected by intense bioerosion and disarticulation that displaced several bones before the final burials. Trace fossils found on the whale bones include shark bite traces, Trypanites, Gastrochaenolites, ?Meandropolydora and Gnatulichnus ichnogenera documenting an intense 2 exploitation of the energy reservoir represented by these carcasses. The biostratigraphic analysis of the site supports a Late Miocene (Upper Tortonian) age and shows presence of post-depositional processes. These included micro-faulting that acted on the whale bones and, in one case, provided forces able to deform a lumbar vertebra. Fish otoliths, mollusc shells and microfossils are consistent in supporting a c. 100 m deep inner shelf deposit. Absence of chemoautothrophic molluscs from the present whale falls confirm that water depth may be the main determinant of the presence of these highly specialized species, that flourish in anoxic environments, because decomposition at shallow depths may still occur in presence of high Oxygen concentrations. Those described herein are the most dense ensembles of traces documenting whale falls communities in the Late Miocene described up to now.

    Keywords: Balaenopteridae, Biostratinomy, Emilia romagna, Miocene, Plesiobalaenoptera, Salsomaggiore Terme, Taphonomy, Tortonian

    Received: 10 Jan 2025; Accepted: 26 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Bisconti, Monegatti, Raineri, Tartarelli and Carnevale. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Michelangelo Bisconti, Department of Earth Sciences, School of Nature Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

    Research integrity at Frontiers

    Man ultramarathon runner in the mountains he trains at sunset

    95% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good

    Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.


    Find out more