The Bolca Lagerstätten: a one-day palaeontological field trip into the Eocene tropical marine life of the western Tethys

The Eocene limestones exposed around the village of Bolca, northern Italy, have provided some of the most complete and well-preserved marine assemblages of the Cenozoic. The fossils of these deposits, especially the famous fossil fishes, are known for more than four centuries and document tropical marine shallow-water ecosystems of the western Tethys, representing a spectacular snapshot of Eocene marine life. The one-day palaeontological field trip presented herein constitutes a deep immersion into the early Cenozoic marine tropical biodiversity of the western end of the Tethys Ocean. The focus of this field trip is therefore to provide a general overview of the outstanding organism diversity of the two main sites of the Bolca Lagerstätten, Monte Postale and Pesciara, and to show their stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental setting. The field trip starts with a visit to the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Verona, which includes the most important collection of Bolca fossils. Then, the second stop shows the Monte Postale stratigraphic succession, and the third stop illustrates the celebrated Pesciara site, exploited for the collection of spectacular fossils since the 16th century.