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A structural study of Lucanian Apennines in Southern Italy reveals that the deformation of this area during middle-upper Pleistocene time was due to strike-slip faulting. The different segments of the strike-slip system and the varying geometric patterns show the development of strike-slip faults. The upper tectonic multilayered horizon is separated from lower horizon by a major decoupling surface. Internal deformation occurs within the crustal shear zone, leading to the segmentation of the strike-slip system.

We here propose a new kinematic picture of central Sicily based on the results of detailed field mapping of the region, combined with structural analyses and the interpretation of the available literature subsurface data. Our study focused on the tectonic boundary of a structural depression, the Caltanissetta Trough, which is now filled with allochthonous terrains resting on the deep-seated inverted African palaeomargin units. Our data refer to the tectonosedimentary evolution of the thrust-top basins, from Late Tortonian to Quaternary times. The study points out the occurrence of regional E–W-oriented dextral shear zones, cutting the NE-oriented trends of the thrust belt. This new evidence would confirm the major role of the E–W trend in the tectonic inversion of the external portions of the Africa palaeomargin in Sicily. Our results could contribute to a better understanding of the location in Sicily of the tectonic lineaments accommodating the hundreds of kilometres of lateral displacement, caused by the Late Miocene–Quaternary Tyrrhenian Basin opening to the north of the island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the role of the major Quaternary fault segments and to test the possible relationships between faults and earthquakes in Italy. Analysis of seismic reflection lines in the Ionian offshore; Characterization of faults in a vertical slip rates; Integration of geological and geophysical data on seismic profiles.

Structural interpretation of available geological and geophysical data from the Molise area (southern Italy) demonstrates that the frontal zones of this sector of the Apennines are characterized by a threefold zoneography defined by distinct structural styles. Resolved geometry of both pellicular and deep-seated structures and their relationships, constrain possible reconstructions for the undeformed, pre-Miocene, southeastern margin of the Afro-Adriatic continent and its neogene deformation history. Identification of peculiar structural associations in the foreland-foredeep complex and reinterpretation of relevant stratigraphic data suggest that deformation, in this sector of the Apennines, has already reached the most external (Apulian) domains and is possibly migrating, at present, toward the currently active Adriatic foredeep of the Molisan thrust system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]