Effects of uplift and tilting in the Central-Northern Apennines (Italy)

The morphotectonics of the Central-Northern Apennines reflect the effects of Pliocene-Pleistocene regional uplift and tectonics. High uplift rates and extensional tectonics prevailed in the axial sector, while lesser uplifting, eastward tilting, and gravity sliding affected the Periadriatic belt. The axial sector has a chocolate-slab pattern of blocks with intermontane depressions, bounded by normal faults and characterized by differential vertical movements. The Periadriatic belt is a NE dipping monocline, broken by transverse faults into separate blocks with different evolutionary development. The evolution of the axial sector can be correlated with that of the Periadriatic sector because the unconformities in the marine succession of the Periadriatic basin are linked to pulses of uplift in the axial chain. The amounts of coarse-grained sediments in intermontane depressions and in the Periadriatic belt are correlated with the erosion processes affecting the axial sector. This morphostructural pattern may be connected with the formation of a long-wavelength bulge associated with mantle upwelling. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.