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An elongated foredeep basin (Periadriatic foredeep) is present at the transition zone between the Apennine chain and the Adriatic foreland in Italy. The flexure of the Adriatic lithosphere underneath the Apennines has caused the accumulation of a thick clastic succession, composed mostly of turbiditic sediments, from the Oligocene to the present. Both the orogenic front and the basin depocentres migrated towards the foreland during the Apennine orogenesis, leading the Apennine thrusts to incorporate progressively younger foredeep deposits. In the Abruzzo offshore area (central Adriatic Sea), seismic profiles have imaged the outermost part of the basin, here filled with Plio-Pleistocene sediments, revealing its present architecture. The most noteworthy features are the progressive pinch-out of the Pliocene foredeep deposits on to the westward-dipping foreland ramp, the Upper Pliocene compressional deformations mainly affecting the foredeep substratum, and the occurrence of a deltaic progradational system replacing turbidites from the Pleistocene. Interpretation and restoration of the seismic sections have allowed a reconstruction of this sector of the foredeep. During the Lower and Middle Pliocene, turbidites accumulated in a wedge-shaped basin, onlapping onto a westward-dipping undeformed foreland ramp. The onlap migrated gradually eastwards. In the Upper Pliocene, folding and faulting involved the foreland ramp and, locally, the foredeep deposits, and syntectonic sedimentation was superimposed on the overall foredeep migration towards the foreland. At the beginning of the Pleistocene, the westward tilting of the foreland plate ceased, and the basin was filled by shallow-water and deltaic sediments prograding eastward. The migration rate of the foredeep, calculated from the base of the pinch-out shifting, was about 11-17 mm/yr from 4.15 to 1.50 Ma, with a variation from 4 to 34 mm/yr depending on the considered time span and on the area. The geometry of the foredeep fill and its migration velocity fit into a geodynamic model involving the eastwards roll-back of the subducting Adria plate under the Apennine chain as the major mechanism of the development of the Periadriatic foredeep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]