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ARTICLE IN PRESS 35

L. Ferranti et al. / Quaternary International 145– 146 (2006) 30–54

Many of the existing MIS 5.5 markers in Italy are and foreland including the active frontal part of the
marine terraces and notches, and are found in areas of Dinaric and Southern Alps system in the northern
uplift. On the other hand, where subsidence prevails, Adriatic (Fig. 5a). The transition between the Apennines
markers are buried under more recent deposits and thus and Western Alps occurs in the Ligurian Sea (Fig. 5a).
exposures are not available.
The islands of Sardinia and Corsica are a detached
Since vertical and horizontal tectonic displacements fragment of the Alpine foreland and orogenic belt
are often contemporaneous, assessment of the vertical (Patacca et al., 1990). The western and eastern side of
displacements must be framed in the regional orogenic Sardinia and Corsica have been effected by intense
setting. The Neogene tectonic evolution of Central- extensional tectonics related to the Oligocene–Miocene
Southern Italy is characterized by paired belts of
contraction and extension that advanced towards the
Adriatic foreland in mainland Italy, and the Hyblean
foreland in Sicily (Fig. 5a; Patacca et al., 1990; Gueguen
et al., 1998). The growth of the Apennines thrust belt to
the east and of the Tyrrhenian back-arc basin to the
west has been controlled by westward subduction and
eastward roll-back and delamination of the Adriatic–
Jonian slab (Malinverno and Ryan, 1986; Royden et al.,
1987; Channell and Mareschal, 1989; Doglioni, 1991).
Today, seismic tomography and deep earthquakes
beneath the southeastern Tyrrhenian Sea identify the
subducted Jonian slab (Fig. 5a; Cimini and Amato,
1993; Selvaggi and Chiarabba, 1995).

During Pliocene–Quaternary, contractional structures
of the western part of the Apennines, Calabria and
eastern Sicily were superimposed by extensional faults
causing displacements normal to the orogen (Fig. 5a).
Most areas of the Tyrrhenian coast experienced exten-
sion in a back-arc setting, which was accompanied by
volcanism on the young continental margin and in the
basin (Beccaluva et al., 1989). The displacement along
the faults articulated the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy in a
complex alternation of subsiding basins and uplifting
rocky promontories (Mariani and Prato, 1992; Cinque
et al., 1993; Tortorici et al., 1995). The transition
between the thrust belt to the east and the extensional
belt to the west runs across the mountain belt and
roughly outlines the front of crustal delamination
(Ferranti and Oldow, 2005a, b; Oldow and Ferranti,
2005).

In contrast, the Adriatic, Jonian and southern Sicilian
coasts overlie the frontal part of the Apennines orogen

Fig. 5. Tectonic setting of Italy. (a) Major tectonic domains: Adriatic
foreland, contractional and extensional belts, and stable block,
indicated by light grey, white, dark grey and medium grey,
respectively. Dashed lines in southern Tyrrhenian sea indicates the
depth (in km) of the Benioff zone (Giardini and Velona` , 1988). (b)
Active deformation including: focal solutions of M44 earthquakes
(black: 1976–2004 Harvard and 1997–2004 Mednet CMT catalogues,
available at http://www.seismology.harvard.edu/CMTsearch.html,
and http://mednet.ingrm.it/, respectively; light grey: Gasparini et al.,
1985; medium grey: Anderson and Jackson, 1987); generalized GPS
site velocity (arrows) with respect to stable Europe; and boundaries of
tectonic domains in the central Mediterranean (thin and thick dashed
line indicate intra-Adria and Africa–Europe–Adria boundaries)
defined by GPS velocities and regional seismicity (Oldow et al., 2002).