Sciency Thoughts: South Tyrol

Showing posts with label South Tyrol. Show all posts

Sunday, 2 November 2025

Avalanche kills five in the Italian Alps.

Five people have been confirmed dead following an avalanche in the Italian Alps on Saturday 1 November 2025. The incident happened at about 4.00 pm local time on Mount Cima Vertana (or Vertainspitze), one of the Ortler Alps of Italy's Alto Adige (or South Tyrol) Province. Two groups of climbers were caught in the event, with all three members of the first group, described as two men and a woman, being swept away. The second group, comprising a father and his 17-year-old daughter, were caught lower down the slope, and were swept downhill about 200 m to their deaths. The event was witnessed by two climbers from a third party, who were above the avalanche when it hit and were able to call for help. All of those involved are understood to have been German nationals.

The route of the 1 November 2025 Cima Vertana avalanche. Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico.

All of the climbers are understood to have been ascending the mountain using ice axes and crampons at the time of the incident. The summit of Cima Vertana is 3545 m above sealevel, making it the 125th highest peak in the Alps. Fog and poor visibility prevented rescue teams from reaching the mountain until some time after dawn on Sunday, with teams with Dogs being airlifted to 2600 m, before continuing the ascent on foot. A representative of the Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico has questioned why climbers were ascending the mountain so late in the day, since even a successful ascent would have led to to their having to descend in darkness.

The location of Cima Vertana. Google Maps.

Avalanches are caused by the mechanical failure of snowpacks; essentially when the weight of the snow above a certain point exceeds the carrying capacity of the snow at that point to support its weight. This can happen for two reasons, because more snow falls upslope, causing the weight to rise, or because snow begins to melt downslope, causing the carrying capacity to fall. Avalanches may also be triggered by other events, such as Earthquakes or rockfalls. Contrary to what is often seen in films and on television, avalanches are not usually triggered by loud noises. Because snow forms layers, with each layer typically occurring due to a different snowfall, and having different physical properties, multiple avalanches can occur at the same spot, with the failure of a weaker layer losing to the loss of the snow above it, but other layers below left in place - to potentially fail later.

Diagrammatic representation of an avalanche, showing how layering of snow contributes to these events. Expedition Earth.

The cause of the 1 November 2025 Cima Vertana avalanche is unclear at this time, although there is known to have been recent snowfall on the mountain, and it has been speculated that some of this poorly consolidated snow could have been shifted by high winds, triggering the event.

Thursday, 27 December 2018

Linguaserra triassica: A new species of Ophiocistioid Echinoderm from the Triassic of northern Italy.

The Ophiocistioids are an extinct group of Echinoderms related to Sea Urchins and Sea Cucumbers. They had a flattened dome-shaped body with a five-jawed mouth on the underside, and a surrounding ring of ambulacra (limbs like those of a Starfish). The Ophiocistioids are generally thought to have become extinct at the end of the Permian, with their body fossils always having been rare. However their unique jaw apparatuses can be used to identify members of this group to species level, raising the possibility that this group could be identified more widely in the fossil record.

In a paper published in the journal Palaeontology on 27 July 2018, Mike Reich of the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology & Geology, the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences and the GeoBio-Center at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Tanja Stegemann, also of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and of the Geoscience Museum at Georg-August University Göttingen, Imaelda Hausmann, again of the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology & Geology, and the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Venessa Roden of the GeoZentrum Nordbayern at the Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, and Alexander Nützel, once again of the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology & Geology, the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences and the GeoBio-Center at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, describe the first known post-Permian Ophiocistioid, from the Late Triassic Cassian Formation of the South Tyrol Province of northern Italy.

The Cassian Formation comprises marine grey and brown claystones laid down between the carbonate platforms that make up the Dolomites. These sediments are soft, and easily eroded where they outcrop, leading to frequent landslips. The specimen from which the new Ophiocistioid comes from such a landslip exposure, from a sample collected near Misurina and sieved for small fossils, which produced a yield dominated by Gastropods, with smaller numbers of Bivalves, Scaphopods and Ammonites, as well as a variety of disarticulated Echinoderm fragments.

The new Ophiocistioid is placed in the genus Linguaserra, and given the specific name triassica, in reference to the age of the strata that produced it. The species is described from a single goniodont (jaw element), comprising a single primary denticle, 484 μm in length with eleven secondary denticles.

Linguaserra triassica, goniodont. (A), (C) outer (abaxial face). (B) inner view (adaxial face). Light microscopic images (A), (B) and SEM image (C). Specimen from the early Carnian Cassian Formation near Misurina (46°35041.6″ N, 12°15034.6″ E), South Tyrol, Italy. Scale bar represents 0.1 mm. Reich et al. (2018).

Saturday, 27 August 2016

Identifying the clothes of Ötzi the Iceman.

In 1991 two German hikers in the Ötztal Alps of the South Tyrol Region of Italy discovered a Human body partially exposed on the surface of a glacier. Careful examination of this body revealed it to be, not as originally thought a modern corpse, but the mummified remains of a 5300-year-old Chalcolithic (Copper Age) hunter, the oldest mummified remains ever discovered in Europe. The mummy, dubbed Ötzi the Iceman, became an overnight sensation, and has been the subject of numerous studies, due to the unique insight he offers into the lives of Chalcolithic Europeans.

Ötzi the Iceman as he was originally discovered. South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

As well as the body of Ötzi himself, the site yielded numerous items of personal effects, the clothes worn, and goods carried by, Ötzi at the time of his death. One area that has interested scientists since the time of the discovery has been the animals from which the Ötzi's cloths were made. A variety of approaches have been tried in trying to solve this puzzle, including DNA analysis, proteomic analyses (analyses of proteins) and study of the microstructure of the leather, but all have been thwarted by the advanced state of decomposition of the material.

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports on 18 August 2016, Niall O’Sullivan of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman and the School of Archaeology and Earth Institute at University College Dublin, Matthew Teasdale and Valeria Mattiangeli of the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at the Trinity College, Dublin, Frank Maixner, also of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, Ron Pinhasi, also of the School of Archaeology and Earth Institute at University College Dublin, Daniel Bradley, also of the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at the University of Dublin, and Albert Zink, again of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, describe the results of a new study of the clothes of Ötzi the Iceman, which used mitochondrial DNA capture in oder to identify the animals from which the skins had come.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is found in the mitochondria, organelles outside the cell nucleus. It is passed directly from mother to child without being sexually recombined each generation, enabling precise estimations of when individuals shared common ancestors, at least through the female line. Importantly, for the purposes of this study, mtDNA comes in much shorter packages than chromosomal DNA (it contains the code for making and operating the mitochondria only, not that for the whole body), and there is much more of it, since each mitochondria has its own DNA and there are typically 1000-2000 mitochondria in each cell, making it much more likely that enough mtDNA will survive for useful analysis.

O'Sullivan et al. were able to extract mtDNA from nine fragments of leather; four fragments of coat, one piece of loincloth, one piece of leggings, a shoelace, a piece of hat and a piece of leather from a quiver (arrow carrying device). Of these pieces thre fragments of the coat and the loincloth were found to be Sheepskin, the remaining piece of the coat and the leggings were Goatskin, the shoelace was Cow leather, the hat Bearskin and the quiver made from the skin of a Roe Deer.

The remains of Ötzi's coat, made from pieces of different skins. South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

At first sight the number of different skins, and the fact that these skins came from different animals, in the coat appears to suggest that clothing was assembled in a haphazard way from whatever materials were at hand. However making such a garment from different cuts of leather or cloth would not be unusual today. The fact that Ötzi's leggings were made out of Goatskin is illuminating, since a similar pair of leggings from a 4500-year-old Chalcolithic site in Switzerland were also made of Goatskin, suggesting that people were consistently using the same material to make the same garments, implying that the skins were being actively chosen for properties that made them suitable for certain garments.

Ötzi's leggings were made from several different peieces of skin, although mtDNA was obtained from only one fragment. South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

The Sheep and Goat skins used to make Ötzi's clothing, as well as the Cow leather of his shoelace all appear to have come from domestic animals, but the Deerskin of the quiver and Bearskin of the hat were almost certainly from wild animals, indicating that the Chalcolithic Alpine people were utilizing material from both sources. Interestingly an earlier study had previously revealed that Ötzi's stomach contents included meat from a Red Deer, as well as identifying several hairs found on Ötzi's body as also having come from Red Deer, indicating that he was able to utilize at least two Deer species.

Ötzi's quiver, made from the skin of a Roe Deer. South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.