Punta Licosa promontory is located in the northern part of the Cilento coast, in the southern Tyrrhenian basin. This promontory is bordered by sea cliffs connected to a wide shore platform sloping slightly towards the sea. This area has been considered stable at least since Late Pleistocene, as testified by a series of evidence well known in the literature. The aim of this research is to reconstruct the main coastal changes that have occurred in this area since the middle Holocene by means of the literature data, aerial photo interpretation, satellite images, GPS measurements, direct underwater surveys, GIS elaborations of high-resolution DTMs, bathymetric data and high-resolution orthophotos taken by UAV. Particular attention was paid to the wide platform positioned between −7.2 ± 1.2 m MSL and the present MSL, this being the coastal landform interpreted as the main consequence of sea cliff retreat. The elevation of this landform was compared with the GIA models calculated for the southern Tyrrhenian area, allowing establishing that it was shaped during the last 7.6 ± 1.1 ky BP. Moreover, the interpretation of archaeological and geomorphological markers led to the reconstruction of the shoreline evolution of this coastal sector since 7.6 ky BP. This research evaluates the cliff retreat under the effect of Holocene RSL variation on Cilento promontories, located in the western Mediterranean and characterised by the presence of monophasic platforms, and the applied method can be considered more effective and less complex and expensive if compared to other effective approaches such as those based on the usage of cosmogenic nuclides.
High coastal sectors constitute the most widespread coastal environment and, under the present accelerated sea-level rise scenario, are suffering huge impacts in terms of erosion. The aim of this paper is the proposal of a new methodological approach for the assessment of their susceptibility to erosive processes. The method is based on the combination of two matrices, i.e., a matrix considering the main physical elements (essentially morphological and geotechnical characteristics) that determine the proneness to erosion of a specific high coastal sector, and a forcing matrix, which describes the forcing agents affecting the considered sector. Firstly, several variables were selected to construct each one of the two matrices according to existing studies and, in a second step, they were interpolated to obtain the susceptibility matrix (CSIx). The approach was applied to Procida Island and Cilento promontory, both located in southern Italy. Results obtained were validated by comparing them with cliff retreat data obtained by means of aerial photographs and satellite images. The analysis shows that the greater part of the analyzed high coastal sectors belongs to the high-susceptibility class due to the combination of adverse morphological, geotechnical and forcing characteristics. Such sectors can be considered “hotspots” that require an increase in monitoring programs and, at places, urgent protective actions.
<p>The Punta Licosa promontory is located in the northern part of Cilento coast in the southern Tyrrhenian basin. In this attractive landscape, depositional and erosional landforms, located both above and below sea level, can be considered a challenge of scientific interest to reconstruct the geomorphological evolution under the control of sea-level changes occurred during the late Quaternary period. The geomorphological study of this area took into account data provided by literature, aerial photo interpretation, GPS measurements, geological surveys, GIS elaborations of high-resolution DTMs, bathymetric data and high-resolution orthophotos taken by unmanned aerial vehicles. The detected landforms were grouped based on morphogenetic and morphoevolutive criteria, paying particular attention to several orders of shore platforms recognized both in the emerged and submerged sectors. Thanks to their analysis, the response of this coastal system to sea-level stands and changes since MIS 7 was detailed reconstructed. According to our reconstructions, three different phases of sea-level stand were identified along the emerged coastal sector. The first sea-level stand is documented by the inner margins of shore platform remnants detected at 9.5 m MSL, ascribed to the MIS5e highstand, according to several authors. The second sea-level stand is poorly testified in our study area but is chronologically well-constrained at Cala Infreschi (southern part of Cilento promontory) thanks to aeolian sands located at 2.7 &#177; 0.1 MSL and dated by Bini et al. (2020) to 109.1 &#177; 0.8 ka BP (MIS5d). The third sea-level stand was extensively mapped along the entire coastal sector at about 4.5 m a.s.l. and dated by Iannace et al. (2001) to 102 &#177; 4 ka BP (MIS5c). The heights at which the above-mentioned sea-level stands are located suggest that the study area gained substantial tectonic stability since MIS 7. This deduction was the starting point of the second research phase in which the morphometric analysis of bathymetric data, coupled with a reinterpretation of literature data, provided clear evidence of sea-level stands occurred since the post-glacial sea-level rise and recognized at depths of about -43/-56 m, -16/-20 m and -8/-10 m MSL. Particular attention was paid to the wide platform formed after the Holocene slowdown in sea-level rise positioned between - 6 m MSL and the present MSL. By comparing our spatial analysis of this landform and the GIA models calculated for the southern Tyrrhenian area, we established that this platform was shaped during the last 6500 years, experiencing retreating rates of 0.030 m/yr, 0.046 m/yr, and 0.039 m/yr in the northern, central, and southern sector of Cilento promontory, respectively. In conclusion, our approach demonstrates the effectiveness of a multi-temporal geomorphological analysis, in order to reconstruct the coastal response to RSL variations in stable contexts along high rocky sectors.</p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Bini, M., et al. "An end to the Last Interglacial highstand before 120 ka: Relative sea-level evidence from Infreschi Cave (Southern Italy)." Quaternary Science Reviews 250 (2020): 106658.</p><p>Iannace, A., et al. "The OIS 5c along Licosa cape promontory (Campania region, southern Italy): morphostratigraphy and U/Th dating." Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie 45.3 (2001): 307-320.</p>
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