Ricerc@Sapienza

We apply for funding to run an innovative research initiative aiming at a quantum leap in the Apennines and Iberian Chain knowledge by addressing, by means of a novel multidisciplinary approach, two different, but fully complementary, research targets. The proposed activities will improve our fundamental multiscalar understanding of the dynamic evolution of the belts and potential impact thereof on society. By studying carefully-selected, geological transects across- and along strike the Apennines and the Iberian Chain, this research project will address the: (1) deformation style in space and through time between continuum and discretized/episodic, possibly seismic, deformation and (2) analysis of the time relationships among thrust-sheet emplacement, internal deformation by folding and extensional tectonics and the study of the rates of the controlling processes. The project will implement a completely novel and integrated scientific approach based on the combination of multiscalar structural analysis with dating of low-temperature deformation episodes. We aim to measure the timing and rates (within a detailed structural framework) of the processes that have steered the nucleation and growth of the belt by K-Ar dating fine-grained synkinematic clay minerals formed authigenically in brittle and brittle-ductile fault rocks and those processes that have triggered the orogenic extension by U-Pb analysis of synkinematic calcite. The outcome will be the improvement of the existing and only loosely time-constrained model of the Apennines and Iberian chain nucleation and development by adding tight constraints on the exact temporal dimension involved in buildup and subsequent tearing down of the orogen. Numerical modeling will aid the final synthesis of the project, where results will be collated to constrain the long-term tectonic evolution of the orogens in space and through time.