A time-trip to the sunny Messinian shores: climate variability and past environmental changes recorded in the Tertiary Piedmont Basin (PROGEOPiemonte Project).

The multidisciplinary research project “PROGEO-Piemonte” aims to achieve a new conceptual and operational discipline in the management of the geological heritage of Piedmont. One of the 9 strategic geothematic areas of the project addresses a controversial scientific theme, that of the climate and environmental change, analyzing the record of the Messinian Salinity Crisis in Piedmont, characterized by dramatic paleobiological, paleo-environmental and paleoclimatic changes in the whole Mediterranean area some 6 Ma ago. We will show to non-specialists the successive steps of this event through a digital tour, aimed to improve people knowledge and awareness of environmental modification and past climate variability and to address the crucial question whether it could happen again in the future. We will produce a web-based digital itinerary that will cover different locations where the MSC steps are best recorded, augmenting the information possibly transmitted on-site by posters and other steady equipment, or making possible the virtual visit to unaccessible sites (active quarries, for example) in a digital environment.