Clastic wedges deposited in deep-marine turbidite systems along the circum-Mediterranean region represent key tectonic elements that record the structural growing of the Apennine orogenic belt over the Adria margin. One of these clastic wedges is represented by the Agnone Flysch turbidite succession deposited in the Lagonegro-Molise foredeep basin in the early Messinian, for which the depositional facies and the related processes, as well as the sandstone and mudstone composition are poorly known. A combined sedimentology and sedimentary petrology study has been conducted on this turbidite succession that provides new insight to define the basin architecture and the provenance of the Agnone Flysch during late Miocene. Facies analysis suggests that this turbidite succession is constituted by depositional lobes that were emplaced in a sector of the basin showing a variable morphological confinement with frontal and lateral slope on which turbidite deposits onlapped. Consequently, this topographic context controlled the lateral and vertical distribution of turbidite facies, which record the effects of erosive processes, as well as impact, rebound and reflection processes, in turn related to the flow deceleration induced by structurally-controlled basin confinement. Detailed sandstones compositional analysis indicates a complex unroofing history that reflects structural changes in the source rock units and depositional basin physiography. By combining the sandstone composition with information deduced from the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns after thermo-chemical treatments (heating and ethylene glycol treatments), it was possible to explain and predict the sedimentary evolution and geological processes affecting fine grained sediments and, thus, the relationship developed between source area and sedimentary basin. In particular, clay minerals data show that Agnone Flysch experienced an early diagenetic condition as showed by the occurrence of the I/S R0 and I/S R1 on the XRD pattern of the glycolated specimens. The sandstone composition (mainly quartzofeldspathic) shows an increase in the metamorphic rock fragments and a decrease of sedimentary lithics up-section. This compositional trend records, together with the paleocurrents data, a derivation of this material from a mountain range located in the Tyrrhenian sector and from the Calabrian arc terranes.
Abstract This work is a synthesis of research into seismic risk perception in the Pollino area (southern Italy). Over the last 3 years, there has been an ongoing earthquake swarm affecting this area that straddles the border between the regions of Calabria and Basilicata. The perception of seismic risk is an important element in environmental planning. If land is considered in terms of reciprocal interaction between humans and their physical space, Geoethics can find a synthesis between humanistic and scientific knowledge with regard to the theme of disasters. Geoethics can especially help in terms of educating the population of an area about integrated risk management. It is believed that improved communications, awareness of risk complexity and levels of preparation would increase a community's resilience and allow for more effective planning. With this premise, a questionnaire was given to students in primary and secondary education, and to a sample of adults in some of the villages affected by the Pollino earthquake swarm. A comparison with people's mental representation of risk regarding great earthquakes of the past, such as those of Calabria in 1783, helps us to clarify the relationship between an extreme event and a disaster.
A new geological-structural map of the southern Serre Massif (SM), in the south-central part of the Calabrian-Peloritani-Orogen (CPO), is provided. CPO is a ribbon-like microplates puzzle, originally belonging to the southern European Variscan Belt and, later involved into the Alpine geodynamics of the central Mediterranean Area. The SM represents one of the key European Variscan basement relicts, because of its exhumation mechanisms as well as for the absence of any Alpine metamorphic overprint. This map has the aim to better delineate the sequence of the Variscan blasto-deformational relationships consisting in a prograde multistage history, followed by an extensional/transpressional multistage retrograde evolution, which triggered the intrusion of the former plutonic products. The mylonitic fabric resulted finally replaced by the effects of the late- to post-kinematic plutonic intrusions coeval with a former late-Variscan exhumation stage, followed, during Mesozoic, by carbonate platform sedimentation, before to be completed exhumed during the Oligocene-Miocene Alpine stages.
An approach consisting of seismics, wells, bathymetrics and literature information provides a better understanding of the origin of an unknown submerged morphological high, the so-called Punta Stilo Swell (S Italy). The Punta Stilo Swell is the expression of alternating phases between contractional, extensional and extetnsional/transpressional tectonics occurred since late Messinian onwards, linked to the Calabrian Arc kinematics
