The role of Mesozoic palaeogeography in the evolution of the Southern Apennines

Andrea Argnani (*)
(*) ISMAR-CNR, Via Gobetti 101, Bologna. E-mail: andrea.argnani@ismar.cnr.it

Several lines of geophysical evidence suggest that the slab subducted underneath the Tyrrhenian sea is made up of oceanic lithosphere. This requires that an oceanic domain was present to the west of the Apulian Platform during the Mesozoic. The sediments of the Lagonegro basin were likely deposited within this oceanic domain, and related continental palaeomargin. The sinking and rolling back of the dense Ionian oceanic lithosphere controlled, to a large extent, the Neogene geological evolution of the Southern Apennines - Tyrrhenian system. In fact, most of the evolution of the Southern Apennines can be accounted for by an accretionary wedge tectonic. Only in the final stages, from Late Miocene-Early Pliocene, the accretionary wedge docked on the continental margin and was emplaced on the Apulian Platform, originating the present structural stack of the southern Apennines. It is here proposed that the Apennine Platform had an original intraoceanic position and was successively incorporated within the accretionary wedge, being detached from its infra-Triassic substratum.

Southern Apennines, Lagonegro-Ionian ocean, palaeogeographic reconstructions