CALDERA – LIVING WITH THE SUPERVOLCANO (A SPECIAL EXHIBITION AT THE MUSEUM OF NATURE SOUTH TYROL)

Volcanoes are manifestations of the internal forces of the Earth and, as such, they profoundly fascinate us. Special attention has ever been directed towards mega-calderas and supervolcanoes because of their potentially devastating global impacts on life and climate; some of the most famous prehistoric supervolcanoes are linked to mass extinctions. This makes the Permian (ca. 280-million-year-old) supervolcano of Bolzano (NE Italy) especially interesting. The explosive super-eruptions that created the Athesian Volcanic Group extended over a time span of 12 million years. The volcanic rocks are intercalated with sedimentary successions deposited during periods of volcanic quiescence. These fluvio-lacustrine sediments, crop out in numerous small basins and are particularly interesting since they yield a wide variety of fossils, including vertebrate and invertebrate trace fossils, plants, and the oldest vertebrate of the Alps.

The special exhibition at the Museum of Nature South Tyrol provides important insights into the evolution of the supervolcano showing the visitor the different types of eruptions of the volcanic complex through time with the help of a 3D projection. The central part of the exhibition deals with the reconstruction of the Cisuralian terrestrial ecosystems at the tropics. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions by Davide Bonadonna, fossils, living plants and 3D reconstructed animals help the visitor to enter into a different time and space, some 280 million years ago, when the sediments were deposited in a megacaldera system laying at the tropics. And the rocks that were formed then are today used worldwide for exterior design and still influence the life of the locals, including the composition of the soils, the local climate and the historical and modern buildings.

Keywords: early Permian, megacaldera, terrestrial ecosystems, climate change, environmental change