Stratigraphic units of the Apulian Tavoliere plain (Southern Italy): Chronology, correlation with marine isotope stages and implications regarding vertical movements

Abstract

The geologic study of the Apulian Tavoliere plain (Apulia región, southern Italy) is extremely difficult due to the scarcity of outcrops and fauna that could be used for dating. The survey inprogressof the 1:50,000 scale geological sheetno. 409 "Zapponeta" (including the coastal zone of the Apulian Tavoliere) has prompted us to tackle this problem by using a large set of borehole data and the AAR dating method applied to ostracod shells, which are capable of colonizing all types of environment as long as there is water. This alternative approach has allowed us to recognise nine stratigraphic units or synthems and, for the first time in this área, to date them, and to find a correlation between them and the cycles of sea level variation. The recognised stratigraphic units are: the Coppa Nevigata sands (NEA; middle Pleistocene: MIS 17-16), argíüe subappennine unit (ASP; middle Pleistocene: MIS 15-13), the Coppa Nevigata synthem (NVI; middle Pleistocene: MIS 11), the Arriendóla subsynthem (MLMi; middle Pleistocene: MIS 11), an undifferentiated continental unit (UCI; middle Pleistocene: MIS 8-7), the Foggia synthem (TGF; middlelate Pleistocene: MIS 6), the Carapelle and Cervaro streams synthem (RPL; late Pleistocene: MIS 5-3), and the Inacquata farm synthem (NAQ; Holocene). Within the RPL unit, a buried Cladocora caespitosa bioherm referable to MIS 5.5, lacking in warm fauna, and in which the coral is embedded in clay has been found in some boreholes. This is the first finding of Tyrrhenian deposits with C. caespitosa along the Italian Adriatic coast; the presence of this coral in clayey sediments, a very uncommon occurrence, strengthens the hypothesis that the major fossil reefs grew in coastal waters that were characterised by alluvial inputs of fine sediments, higher turbidity, and higher temperature than today. In addition, on the basis of the current evidence, some consideration about the fauna of the MIS 5.5 layer allows us to hypothesise that the Adriatic Sea underwent a more modérate warming compared to that of the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. Instead, the finding in the NVI unit of a tropical lagoonal deposit with stromatolites referred to MIS 11 proves that the warming in this stage was undoubtedly greater than that of MIS 5.5. The MM4 borehole, which goes through the MIS 5 layers of the RPL unit, made it possible to recognise two marine phases during MIS 5: the first is referable to the MIS 5.5-5.3 interval, and the second to MIS 5.1. MIS 5.2 is marked by land emersión, whereas no evidence of land emersión between MIS 5.5 and 5.3 has been found. Also for the first time in this área, uplifting and subsiding áreas have been recognised and the vertical movements assessed. In general, the data suggest that the Garganic Apulian foreland and the Amendola highland experienced an uplift, while the central-southern part of the study área, belonging to the Apulian Tavoliere plain, suffered a subsidence with rates increasing from north-northwest to south-southeast. In particular, the finding of the MIS 5.5 bu...

Delta growth and river valleys: the influence of climate and sea level changes on the South Adriatic shelf (Mediterranean Sea)

“…The high-subsidence rates of the Bradanic Trough characterizing the Lower Pliocene sedimentation favored the deposition of a deepening succession of shallow-marine carbonates to hemipelagic deposits (Tropeano et al, 2002). This trend was interrupted when the collision between the 110 km thick subducting Adria plate and the front of the accretionary prism led to the uplift of the foredeep/foreland domains (Doglioni et al, 1994), as recorded by the Middle PleistoceneeHolocene shoaling up trend of marine-alluvial sequences (Amorosi et al, 2009;De Santis et al, 2010), now partially exposed in the Tavoliere Plain (Tropeano et al, 2002).…”

“…The MIV reaches its maximum depth and width (45 m and 7 km respectively) in the modern inner shelf, and could be even larger and deeper approaching the modern coastal plain (De Santis et al, 2010). The valley shrinks toward the outer shelf, reaching a minimum incision of about 5e8 m seaward, where the flanks of the valley are at ca 85 m bsl.…”

Geology of the middle and upper Pleistocene marine and continental terraces of the northern Tavoliere di Puglia plain (Apulia, southern Italy)

“…Age constrains for these synthems are based on radiometric data (De Santis,Caldara, De Torres, & Ortiz, 2010;Sanderson & Murphy, 2010) and morpho-stratigraphic correlations(Gioia et al, 2014;Moretti et al, 2010).…”

The 5.5–4.5 kyr climatic transition as recorded by the sedimentation pattern of coastal deposits of the Apulia region, southern Italy

“…Previously described and interpreted in De Santis et al (2010Santis et al ( , 2013, in this study area, this subunit consists of dark grey to grey-blue clays, greyish clayey or silty sands, greyish clays and silts and yellowish sands with a high content of marine fauna. This subunit is attributed to the MIS 5-MIS 3 interval.…”

“…A delta R correction (δR = 121 ± 60) calculated for the Southern Adriatic Sea off Barletta (Taviani M. and Correggiari A., personal communication; http://intcal.qub.ac.uk/marine/) was used. The sample of the MM4 borehole was dated by using the Amino Acid Racemisation (AAR) method applied on ostracod shells at the Biomolecular Stratigraphy Laboratory of the Polytechnical University of Madrid (De Santis et al, 2010Santis et al, , 2013.…”