The NNW-SSE -trending Apennines form the geological backbone of a large tract of Italy. With their significant active seismicity, they are of great societal importance and the Italian Earth Sciences community has to constantly improve its knowledge of the belt in order to help manage Italy's seismic territory in all its components.
From a geodynamic perspective, the Apennines are an orogenic chain formed in response to the Oligocene-Miocene convergence between the Adriatic Promontory and the Corsica-Sardinia microplate. Subduction and westward underthrusting of the Adriatic lithosphere progressively widened the orogenic wedge, causing its compressional front to steadily migrate eastward to its current foreland location (i.e. Adriatic portion of the chain). Crustal extension ensued in the Mid-Late Miocene in response to the lower-plate rollback and caused progressive and still-ongoing extension to migrate eastward through time. Extension thus followed compression in a temporally and spatially complex pattern.
This research aims at improving the knowledge of a portion of the central Apennine chain by adopting a multipronged approach. In detail, this research aims at constraining the central Apennines deformation style in space and through time by combining multiscalar structural analysis with the dating of brittle and seismic deformation episodes by K-Ar analysis of synkinematic clay minerals by U-Pb analysis of synkinematic calcite mineralizations.
The outcome of this unique scientific effort will be the improvement of the existing and only loosely time-constrained model of a portion of the central Apennines nucleation and development by adding new chronological constraints.
This research aims to measure the timing and rates of the processes that have steered the nucleation and growth of a portion of the central Apennine belt. The outcome will be the improvement of the existing and only loosely time-constrained model of central Apennines nucleation and development by adding tight constraints on the exact temporal dimension involved in buildup and subsequent tearing down of the orogen.
The results of this research could contribute to tackle the societal challenge of mitigating seismic risks. In fact, understanding the timing and duration of tectonics activities in different portions of the Apennines acould contribute to the definition of seismic risk associated with faults.
The proposed project is original and includes frontier science, since previously, multi-disciplinary studies involving structural, stable isotopes, clumped isotopes, and radiometric analyses on coseismic minerals have only been partially applied in Italy as well as in Europe.
The proposed scientific collaborations with international research institutions (NGU, Geological Survey of Norway) and universities (Goethe University of Frankfurt and ETH of Zurich) will contribute to directly address all these aspects in a context of European scientific excellence.