The Apenninic—Maghrebian orogen in southern Italy, Sicily and adjacent areas

Abstract

The Apenninic—Maghrebian orogen or Southern Apenninic (SA) arc in the central Mediterranean region developed as the product of convergence between the Europe and Africa—Adria plates, mostly during Tertiary times. The European plate margin is represented by the Sardinian block, split from the main plate during the late Oligocene following the opening of the Balearic basin (Cohen et al., 1980; Cherchi and Montadert, 1982a,b; Dewey et al., 1989; Carmignani et al.,1995). The African foreland includes the continental areas of both the Pelagian block (Burollet et al., 1978), and the Adria (Apulian) block, which have been separated, during Jurassic or earlier times, by the growing Ionian oceanic basin (Ben Avraham et al., 1992; Vai, 1994; Finetti et al., 1996). The deposits of the foreland consist of Mesozoic—Cenozoic carbonates up to 10 km thick (Burollet et al., 1978; Patacca et al., 1979; Bianchi et al., 1989; Mostardini and Merlini, 1988), whereas the oceanic Ionian crust underlies thin Mesozoic—Cenozoic, deep-sea to oceanic sediments (Finetti et al., 1996).