This proposal is a multidisciplinary project, involving people from DST and DING Departments.

The protection and the valorization of natural heritage is an opportunity for economic development of local communities. The touristic promotion of an area, preserving and improving its naturalness levels but also being an opportunity for development, needs to be based on the scientific knowledge of the places and the sustainable management of the natural resources. While it is more immediate to understand the importance of protecting a forest or an animal species, it is still not widespread awareness of the geological heritage protection, often constituted by non-renewable resources as a waterfall, a cave, a fossil level. Italian natural heritage is well known, however inland areas are often poorly reached from the main touristic flows.

The project proposal is focused on the geoconservation and valorization of the Pietraroja area which is rich in geoheritage of great scientific value (Società Paleontologica Italiana, 2019) for the occurrence of a Cretaceous theropod dinosaur, named Scipionyx samniticus, characterized by an extraordinary soft-tissue preservation and of thin and very delicate abdominal bones (Dal Sasso and Signore, 1998), that is of interest for both education and tourism and, due to its international relevance, it has been proposed for classification as the location of a UNESCO Global Geopark. During the research period will be explored the possibility to develop a digital model of the Scipionyx samniticus by using a 3D modelling software in order to rebuild its real look.

The project includes visits on the area and intends to begin students to geoconservation methodology including: inventory and characterization of the geosites, relevance and ranking of the geosites, implementation of the conservation and tourism promotion strategies. The students will also attend workshops on acquisition and processing of 3D data laser scanners to reconstruct some fossil skeletons.

The students will be jointly supervised by prof. F. Ornella Amore, who has been working on geological heritage for years and refers to DST Department, and who is also a member of the Scientific Committee of Pietraroja Geo-paleontological Foundation; and by prof. Romano Fistola who is an expert of geographical information systems (GIS) and digital design, and refers to DING Department.