In the presence of Stan Finney, Secretary General of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), institutional and academic authorities, among which Rodolfo Coccioni coordinator of the Chattian working group, together with students and local people, have attended the Official launch of the GSSP of the Chattian Stage (Oligocene Series), hosted by local, regional and national administrators and coordinated by Simonetta Monechi, University of Florence, Chair of the International Subcommission on Paleogene Stratigraphy (ISPS).

About one hundred people attended the event in Urbania, most of which then moved to Monte Cagnero, first by car, then walking the last mile until reaching the site where the commemorative plaque has been erected, in front of the section studied by Rodolfo Coccioni and co-workers. Alessandro Montanari, Director of Osservatorio Geologico Coldigiogo, gave a speech in front of authorities, scientists, students, and all those who gathered to participate to the event on the field, before the small crowd moved to the very site of the Point of the Chattian base.

Here the Golden Spike was hammered down into the marly level separating Rupelian sediments below, from Chattian sediments above. It’s the sixty-nineteeneth Golden Spike accepted by the geological community, the sixty-nineteenth marker of major steps in the geological history of the planet.