Pliocene‐Quaternary orogenic systems in Central Mediterranean: The Apulia‐Southern Apennines‐Tyrrhenian Sea example

Abstract

In the Central Mediterranean the Africa‐Eurasia convergence led to the development of complex orogenic systems and back‐arc basins. Throughout Pliocene‐Quaternary times the Southern Apennines accretionary prism migrated toward the Apulia foreland and, contemporaneously, the Tyrrhenian Sea back‐arc basin opened. In this study, we investigated the offshore of the southern Apulia foreland and the Southern Apennines. Using seismic reflection profiles and well data in a dedicated GIS software, we made a detailed stratigraphic analysis, reconstructed the structural pattern, and built 2‐D geological models of the main geological surfaces. The structure of the Apulia region formed during two main tectonic stages: lower Pleistocene complex extensional faulting developed in a transtensional regime and middle‐upper Pleistocene transpression/shortening. The Southern Apennines accretionary prism developed through the Pliocene‐early lower Pleistocene and was overprinted by late lower Pleistocene‐middle Pleistocene NW‐SE sinistral faults. Through linking new data from the accretionary prism and the foreland with previous information from the Tyrrhenian Sea back‐arc, we provide an original interpretation for the relationships between the various provinces that make the Central Mediterranean crustal puzzle and reconstruct the main phases of the evolution of its Pliocene‐Quaternary orogenic cycle. We recognized collisional stages of uncoupled plates, followed by late lower‐middle Pleistocene postcollisional stages of coupled continental plates. This Pleistocene plate reorganization of Central Mediterranean was probably due to the rupture of the Apulia/Ionian slab or to NNW intraplate shortening transmitted from Africa.

Tectono-stratigraphic evolution of the Southern Campania Margin: a key area for the evolution of the Tyrrhenian-Apennine system

“…Massari and Prosser 2013;Zecchin 2005). The interpretation of the Crotone Basin in the framework of extensional basins formed eastwards of the Vavilov Basin (Milia et al, 2017b), is coherent with the position of the Calabria terrane close to the uplifted Cilento promontory (Fig. 13c).…”

“…Between the first and second rifting stages of the SCM, a late Lower Pleistocene tectonic event affected the Tyrrhenian margin and the Northern boundary of the Calabrian terrane. This event was associated to: i) end of the continen-tal collision and lock of Southern Apennines thrust belt toward the Apulia foreland and contemporaneous translation of the Calabria terrane toward the Ionian oceanic foreland; and (ii) triggering of a wide NW-SE region of left-lateral faulting (Pollino shear zone), transtensional zones, and local popup structures, in the Southern Apennines and Tyrrhenian back-arc margin (Knott and Turco, 1991;Monaco et al, 2001;Schiattarella et al, 2005;Milia et al, 2009Milia et al, , 2017aMilia et al, , 2017b. Patacca et al (1990) dated this event to the Emilian-Sicilian boundary, an interpretation matched by Mattei et al (2007), who placed the end of contraction at~1 Ma, as proved by sealing of deformation by sediments of Sicilian age.…”

“…During the Pleistocene the extension propagated toward the East. In the Middle-Upper Pleistocene, extension was localized on the Campania margin and propagate toward SE/ESE (Torrente and Milia, 2013;Milia and Torrente, 2015a;Milia et al, 2017a;2017b). The Middle-Upper Pleistocene crustal extension dismembered the Campania Margin and resulted in several rift basins like the Campania Plain, Gaeta Bay, Naples Bay and SCM basins ( Fig.…”

“…Apart from the recent paper of Milia et al (2017aMilia et al ( , 2017b, previous geological works analyzed only limited part of the SCM. NE-trending normal faults that controlled a thick depocenter (>2 km, Mina 1 well) have been reported (Sacchi et al, 1994;Casciello et al, 2004) in the Salerno bay.…”

Extensional Messinian basins in the Central Mediterranean (Calabria, Italy): new stratigraphic and tectonic insights

“…The original geometric relationships between these Messinian sedimentary basins have certainly been altered by the following transcurrent/transpressive tectonics that could have caused lateral dislocations (Van Dijk and Okkes, 1991;Van Dijk, 1994;Tansi et al, 2007;Spina et al, 2011;Milia et al, 2017d). Nevertheless, to investigate the crustal architecture of Messinian basins of Calabria we built a N-S geological sketch, orthogonal to E-W normal faults documented onshore and offshore, and made a stratigraphic correlation between the Messinian subunits (Fig.…”