Late Quaternary uplift of northeastern Sicily: relation with the active normal faulting deformation

The evaluation of the vertical displacement-rate of the Late Quaternary marine terraces along the Ionian coast of northeastern Sicily (southern Italy) has been adopted as a tool to reconstruct the Late Quaternary deformation affecting the aseismic area, intervening between the Calabrian arc and the eastern Sicily seismogenic regions. The methodology adopted, based on computer elaboration of the field data, provided the amount of the uplift recorded since 124 ka, partitioned in the time, with the resolution of the oxygen isotope timescale (OIT) stages. The main result of the analysis is the recognition of a recently deformed sector of the coast, corresponding to the area of underlap between the seismogenic faults of southern Calabria and eastern Sicily. The deformation path of the Late Quaternary shorelines is consistent with the occurrence of an active normal fault in the off shore of the area. This tectonic feature, that crosses through a main crustal barrier, represents the link between the two sets of seismogenic faults that cut through the weakened sectors of the crust. The resulting picture clearly indicates the influence of crustal properties on the geometry of the active fault belt and on the distribution of the main seismic events along the active Siculo-Calabrian Rift Zone. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.