“…On the other hand, lowstand carbonate platforms commonly correspond to a bottom massive thick bed (up to few tens-of-metres thickness), which is capped by a drowning surface (i.e., hardground) and/or evolves upwards to decimetre to metre thick retrograding strata and/or to basin marls (Bover-Arnal et al, 2009, 2011a, 2014 Caprinidae disappeared from the Tethyan and Atlantic regions at the boundary between the Early and Late Aptian (Masse, 1989;Skelton and Gili, 2012). Caprinid lithosomes of late Early Aptian age are rare in carbonate platform deposits formed on the northern margin of the Tethys (Skelton and Gili, 2012), but common in those of isolated central Tethyan platforms such as the Southern Apennines (D'Argenio et al, 1992;Masse et al, 1993;Carannante et al, 2009), Apulia (Masse, 1992;Graziano, 1999Graziano, , 2000Graziano, , 2013Luciani et al, 2006) and Adriatic…”