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Investigation of a >6‐km‐thick succession of Cretaceous to Cenozoic sedimentary rocks in the Tajik Basin reveals that this depocentre consists of three stacked basin systems that are interpreted to reflect different mechanisms of subsidence associated with tectonics in the Pamir Mountains: a Lower to mid‐Cretaceous succession, an Upper Cretaceous–Lower Eocene succession and an Eocene–Neogene succession. The Lower to mid‐Cretaceous succession consists of fluvial deposits that were primarily derived from the Triassic Karakul–Mazar subduction–accretion complex in the northern Pamir. This succession is characterized by a convex‐up (accelerating) subsidence curve, thickens towards the Pamir and is interpreted as a retroarc foreland basin system associated with northward subduction of Tethyan oceanic lithosphere. The Upper Cretaceous to early Eocene succession consists of fine‐grained, marginal marine and sabkha deposits. The succession is characterized by a concave‐up subsidence curve. Regionally extensive limestone beds in the succession are consistent with late stage thermal relaxation and relative sea‐level rise following lithospheric extension, potentially in response to Tethyan slab rollback/foundering. The Upper Cretaceous–early Eocene succession is capped by a middle Eocene to early Oligocene (ca. 50–30 Ma) disconformity, which is interpreted to record the passage of a flexural forebulge. The disconformity is represented by a depositional hiatus, which is 10–30 Myr younger than estimates for the initiation of India–Asia collision and overlaps in age with the start of prograde metamorphism recorded in the Pamir gneiss domes. Overlying the disconformity, a >4‐km‐thick upper Eocene–Neogene succession displays a classic, coarsening upward unroofing sequence characterized by accelerating subsidence, which is interpreted as a retro‐foreland basin associated with crustal thickening of the Pamir during India–Asia collision. Thus, the Tajik Basin provides an example of a long‐lived composite basin in a retrowedge position that displays a sensitivity to plate margin processes. Subsidence, sediment accumulation and basin‐forming mechanisms are influenced by subduction dynamics, including periods of slab‐shallowing and retreat.

The Northern Apennines provide an example of long-term deep-water sedimentation in an underfilled pro-foreland basin first linked to an advancing orogenic wedge and then to a retreating subduction zone during slab rollback. New palaeobathymetric and geohistory analyses of turbidite systems that accumulated in the foredeep during the Oligocene-Miocene are used to unravel the basin subsidence history during this geodynamic change, and to investigate how it interplayed with sediment supply and basin tectonics in controlling foredeep filling. The results show an estimated ca. 2 km decrease in palaeowater depth at ca. 17 Ma. Moreover, a change in basin subsidence is documented during Langhian time, with an average decompacted subsidence rate, during individual depocentre life, that increased from

Through a multidisciplinary approach based on novel micropaleontological and geochemical analyses, the main paleoceanographic and paleoclimate changes that have influenced the surface- and deep-water circulation in the SW Pacific Ocean (Chatham Rise, eastern New Zealand) during the last million years are reconstructed. This region represents a key area for investigating the climate evolution during the Pleistocene because here the largely wind-driven Antarctic Circumpolar Current interacts with the west Pacific Ocean circulation via the Deep Western Boundary Current, the major source of deep water for the whole Pacific Ocean. To understand coupling or decoupling events between sea surface and bottom waters, a continuous marine sedimentary succession since 1.1 Ma, recovered by the IMAGES (International Marine Past Global Change Study) cruise in the SW Pacific Ocean (Core MD97-2114), has been investigated based on calcareous planktonic and benthic microfossil content and C and O isotope record performed on planktonic and benthic foraminiferal tests. Results show the occurrence of long- and short-term patterns of climate and ocean circulation in the last million years as the result of the interplay of ice-sheet dynamics, surface tropical versus polar water inflow, and trophic status of the surface water. Copyright # 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper discusses the Cenozoic interaction of regional tectonics and climate changes. These processes were responsible for mass flux from mountain belts to depositional basins in the eastern Alpine retro-foreland basin (Venetian–Friulian Basin). Our discussion is based on the depositional architecture and basin-scale depositional rate curves obtained from the decompacted thicknesses of stratigraphic units. We compare these data with the timing of tectonic deformation in the surrounding mountain ranges and the chronology of both long-term trends and short-term high-magnitude (‘aberrant’) episodes of climate change. Our results confirm that climate forcing (and especially aberrant episodes) impacted the depositional evolution of the basin, but that tectonics was the main factor driving sediment flux in the basin up to the Late Miocene. The depositional rate remained below 0.1 mm year−1 on average from the Eocene to the Miocene, peaking at around 0.36 mm year−1, during periods of maximum tectonic activity in the eastern Southern Alps. This dynamic strongly changed during the Pliocene–Pleistocene, when the basin-scale depositional rate increased to an average of 0.26 mm year−1 (Pliocene) and 0.73 mm year−1 (Pleistocene). This result fits nicely with the long-term global cooling trend recorded during this time interval. Nevertheless, we note that the timing of the observed increase may be connected with the presumed onset of major glaciations in the southern flank of the Alps (0.7–0.9 Ma), the acceleration of the global cooling trend (since 3–4 Ma) and climate variability (in terms of magnitude and frequency). All these factors suggest that combined high-frequency and high-magnitude cooling–warming cycles are particularly powerful in promoting erosion in mid-latitude mountain belts and therefore in increasing the sediment flux in foreland basins.

Integrated geohistory analysis performed on high-resolution stratigraphy of Venezia1and Lido1wells (Quaternary^Pliocene interval) and low-resolution stratigraphy of a simulated well extending Lido 1 down to the base of Cenozoic (Palaeocene^Miocene interval) is used to reconstruct the interplay between subsidence and sedimentation that occurred in the Venice area (eastern Po Plain) during the last 60 Myr, and to discuss the relationships between calculated subsidence rates and time resolution of stratigraphic data. Both subsidence and sedimentation are mostly related to the tectonic evolution of the belts that surround the Venice basin, in£uencing the lithosphere vertical motions and the input of clastic sediments through time. In particular, two subsidence phases are recorded between 40^33.5 and 32.5^24 Myr (0.13 and 0.14 mm year � 1 , respectively), coeval with tectonic phases in the Dinaric belt.Vice versa, during the main South-Alpine orogenic phase (middle^late Miocene), quiescence or little uplift ( � 0.03 mm year � 1 ) re£ects the location of the Venice area close to the peripheral bulge of the South-Alpine foreland system. Early Pliocene evolution is characterised by a number of subsidence/uplift events, among which two uplifts occurred between 5^4.5 and 3^2.2 Myr (at � 0.4 and � 0.2 mm year � 1 , respectively) and can be correlated with tectonic motions in the Apennines. During the last million years, the Venice area was initially characterised by uplift ( � 0.6 mm year � 1 rising to � 1.5 mm year � 1 between 0.4 and 0.38 Myr), eventually replaced by subsidence at a rate ranging between 1.6 and 1.0 mm year � 1 up to 0.12 Myr and then decreased to 0.4 mm year � 1 ,a s an average, up to present. Our results highlight that time resolution of the stratigraphic dataset deeply in£uences the order of magnitude obtained for the calculated subsidence rate.This is because subsidence seems to have worked through short-lived peaks (in the order of10 5 years), alternating with