1. Introduction The global changes that occurred in marine biota dur- ing the late Campanian – Maastrichtian time interval have long been a subject of debate (Nelson et al. 1991; Huber and Watkins 1992; Barrera 1994; Chauris et al. 1998; Li and Keller 1998; Thibault and Gardin 2010; Thibault et al. 2010). The precise chronology of biotic events (i. e., extinction of inoceramid and rudist bi- valves, migration and assemblage changes in calcare- ous plankton species) and their correlation with poten- tial climatic driving factors (such as circulation Newsletters on Stratigraphy, Vol. 45/1, 75–103 Article Published online April 2012 Bio-magnetochronology for the upper Campanian – Maastrichtian from the Gubbio area, Italy: new results from the Contessa Highway and Bottaccione sections Silvia Gardin 1 , Bruno Galbrun 2 , Nicolas Thibault 3 , Rodolfo Coccioni 4 , and Isabella Premoli Silva 5 With 9 figures, 2 plates and 5 tables Abstract. A new bio-chronostratigraphic framework is presented for the upper Campanian – Maastrichtian pelagic sediments of the Gubbio area (Bottaccione and Contessa Highway sections, Italy). New planktonic foraminiferal (FO of P.hantkeninoides), calcareous nannofossil (FO of M. prinsii, base acme of M. murus) and magnetostratigraphic data are provided and integrated to construct an age-depth curve based on the recent astronomical calibration of the late Campanian – Maastrichtian magnetic polarity time scale (Husson, D., Gal- brun, B., Laskar, J., Hinnov, L. A., Thibault, N., Gardin, S., Locklair, R. E., 2011. Astronomical calibration of the Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 305, 328–340). All bio-horizons recorded in both sections fall on or are very close to the Line of Correlation (LOC), which testifies to the re- liability of biochronologic studies in the Umbria-Marche basin. The proposed age model allows to estimate the sedimentation rates and the ages of calcareous nannofossil and planktonic foraminiferal bio-horizons in both sections. Also, it provides an excellent late Campanian – Maastrichtian reference for sections in the Um- bria-Marche area and the entire Tethys. Due to the presence of a ~425 kyr-long hiatus in Chron C31n of the Bottaccione section, the Contessa Highway section constitutes a more complete late Campanian – Maas- trichtian reference for bio-magnetochronology in the Tethyan realm. Key words. Campanian – Maastrichtian, bio-magnetochronology, calcareous plankton, Gubbio, Italy © 2012 Gebrüder Borntraeger, Stuttgart, Germany DOI: 10.1127/0078-0421/2012/0014 www.borntraeger-cramer.de 0078-0421/2012/0014 $ 7.25 Authorʼs address: 1 UMR 7207, Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 06, Paris, France. 2 UMR 7193, Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 06, Paris, France. 3 Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 4 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, della Vita e dell’Ambiente, Università degli Studi “Carlo Bo”, Urbino, Italy. 5 Department of Earth Sciences “Ardito Desio”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy. Corresponding author: Silvia Gardin, E-Mail: silvia.gardin@upmc.fr