SIRIPRO PROJECT: DEEP CRUSTAL SETTING IN THE NORTHERN SICILY CONTINENTAL MARGIN AND ITS ADJACENT ONSHORE

Backthrusts and passive roof duplexes in fold-and-thrust belts. The case of Central-Western Sicily based on seismic reflection data

Seismic reflection profiles crossing the area bounded by the M. Kumeta Ridge and the M. Maranfusa-M. Galiello-Rocca Busambra morphostructural feature (central-western Sicily) were used to constrain the deep structural setting of the Sicilian-Maghrebian fold-and-thrust belt (FTB). By integrating seismic, field and well data, we attempted to correlate outcropping and deep-seated contractional structures, shedding light on the internal geometries of the thrust system. Results of the new seismostratigraphic analysis presented in this paper reveal structural variations along the tectonic edifice. This suggests dividing the study area into two sectors: the western sector is characterized by forel…

Backthrusts and passive roof duplexes in fold-and-thrust belts

Abstract Seismic reflection profiles crossing the area bounded by the M. Kumeta Ridge and the M. Maranfusa-M. Galiello-Rocca Busambra morphostructural feature (central-western Sicily) were used to constrain the deep structural setting of the Sicilian–Maghrebian fold-and-thrust belt (FTB). By integrating seismic, field and well data, we attempted to correlate outcropping and deep-seated contractional structures, shedding light on the internal geometries of the thrust system. Results of the new seismostratigraphic analysis presented in this paper reveal structural variations along the tectonic edifice. This suggests dividing the study area into two sectors: the western sector is characterized…

PROGETTO SIRIPRO: INTERPRETAZIONE GEOLOGICA PRELIMINARE DEL PROFILO SISMICO CROSTALE

Towards a new marine structural model of Italy

The exploitation of economic resources in marine environment and the assessment of natural hazards press a greater knowledge of the sea floor geology. Since the Structural Model of Italy was published in the 1991 by the CNR, new data have been collected concerning the marine geology of the sea floor surrounding Italy, also by means of up to date technologies (digital seismics, SBP Chirp, Multibeam). Data collected during the last decades in the frame of research programs as CROP MARE, CARG, morpho-bathymetric survey of the Tyrrhenian Sea, MAGIC, allow investigating the submerged geological structures with different temporal and spatial resolution. As consequence, at present marine geologist…

Sicily’s fold–thrust belt and slab roll-back: the SI.RI.PRO. seismic crustal transect

Sicily is a thick orogenic wedge formed by (1) the foreland (African) and its Sicilian orogen and (2) the thick-skinned, Calabrian–Peloritani wedge. The crust under central Sicily, from the Tyrrhenian margin to the coastline of the Sicily Channel, has been investigated by the multidisciplinary (SI.RI.PRO.) research project. The project dealt with the nature and thickness of the crust and depth and geometry of the Moho, which is essential in formulating subduction models and improving the knowledge of African and Tyrrhenian–European lithospheres. The results resolve features such as (1) the main orogenic wedge, (2) the very steep, NW–SE-trending regional monocline suggesting inflection of th…

Neo-Tethys (or Palaeotethys arm?)Permian-Mesozoic carbonates in the Pelagian continental margin (Central Mediterranean)

THE SIRIPRO PROJECT: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO SICILY GEODYNAMIC SETTING. THE GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE CENTRAL SICILY CRUSTAL SEISMIC LINE

Some considerations on the results of the crustal SIRIPRO profile in central Sicily

Geological results of the crustal SIRIPRO transect in central Sicily

Foglio 607 Corleone

The tectono-sedimentary evolution of the syntectonic basins growing on the Sicilian fold and thrust belt

La “Dorsale di Camporeale” (Sicilia NW):significato strutturale nel contesto della tettonica deep-seated.

The “Camporeale Ridge” (NW Sicily): structural significance within deep-seated tectonics. The “Camporeale Ridge” is a morphostructural element cropping out in NW Sicily. Detailed structural and stratigraphic analysis carried out in the study area allows us to reconstruct a main E-W-trending anticline partially exposed along the ridge. Its development is due to the action of high-angle transpressive faults which bound both northwards and southwards site of the ridge. Seismic reflection profile crossing the study area images a tectonic stack made up of carbonates rocks (Trapanese Units, TP) overlain a numidian flysch and Neogene terrigenous units along a low angle thrust plane. The profile im…

Surface geometries in central Sicily FTB in the frame of the Siripro crustal profile

VIGOR: Sviluppo geotermico nelle Regioni della Convergenza. Progetto VIGOR – Valutazione del Potenziale Geotermico delle Regioni della Convergenza, POI Energie Rinnovabili e Risparmio Energetico 2007-2013

Deep structural setting of the Rocca Busambra Ridge (central-western Sicily): a seismostratigraphic reconstruction

The Sicilian collisional boundary. An unconventional carbonate foreland and fold and thrust belt.

Extensive backthrusting features in the northern Sicily continental margin highlight a late collisional stage of the Sicilian Fold and Thrust Belt

Backthrusting, nappe refolding, and normal faulting frequently characterize late collisional stage of an orogen. Shortening driven by backthrusting is widely reported in the Alpine orogen, and it has been proposed to be responsible for the increase of subsidence. Moreover delamination and backthrusting has been considered as related to subcritical condition of a Coulomb-type accretional wedge (Torres Carbonell et al., 2011). The Sicilian Fold and Thrust Belt (SFTB) was characterized by a three-stage evolution during the last 15 My: two main shortening events generated and developed at different structural levels (shallow- and deep-seated thrusts in thinskinned thrust-model) and different ti…

Deep controls on foreland basin system evolution along the Sicilian fold and thrust belt

Abstract Neogene-Quaternary wedge-top-basins arose during the Sicilian fold and thrust belt (FTB) build-up. The infilling sedimentary successions are: i) middle-upper Miocene silicoclastics succession, accommodated on top of the accreted Sicilide and Numidian flysch nappes; ii) upper Miocene-lower Pliocene deepening-upwards sediments unconformably overlying the inner Meso-Cenozoic deep-water, Imerese and Sicanian thrust units; iii) Upper Pliocene-Quaternary coastal-open shelf deposits unconformably covering (in the outer sector of the FTB) a tectonic stack (Gela thrust system). These successions are characterized by a basal unconformity on the deformed substrate believed to be the depositio…

Deep controls on Foreland Basin System evolution along the Sicily Thrust Belt

The palinspastic restoration of the Sicilian crustal geological cross section (Catalano et al., 2013) points out two subsequent main thrust (MT1 and MT2) active during the Neogene tectonic evolution as well as the decrease of slip and shortening rate estimated for MT2 with respect to MT1 early main thrust. During orogenic building, syn-tectonic deposits are accumulated inside wedge-top-basin that grow on top of thrust sheets. Sedimentary and stratigraphic features of wedge-top basin change trough time following fold and thrust belt evolution. Neogene-Quaternary syn- tectonic successions (terrigenous, evaporitic, hemipelagic and shallow water deposits) extensively crop-out, in more or less w…

Triangle zone and passive-roof duplexes in central-western Sicily? new insight from seismic interpretation

INTERPLAY BETWEEN TECTONIC AND SEDIMENTATION IN THE "CAMPOREALE BASIN"( NW SICILY) SEDIMENTARY INFILLING. A NEW VISTA FROM FIELD AND SEISMIC DATA.

Middle Miocene–Early Pliocene wedge-top basins of NW Sicily (Italy): constraints for the tectonic evolution of a ‘non-conventional’ thrust belt, affected by transpression

The study of geological evolution of a multiphase orogenic belt is complex, expecially when the tectonic events are superimposed in a coaxial fashion. The Sicilian fold-and-thrust belt represents an interest- ing case study, as a non-coaxial superimposition of structures is recognizable, owing to large synkinematic clockwise rotations during each of two subsequent compressional events. These rotations involved also the syntectonic basins that developed in the wedge-top depozone. This study aims to constrain the tectono-depo- sitional evolution of the NW Sicily fold-and-thrust belt and the associated wedge-top depozone between the middle Miocene and the early Pliocene. Integrated analyses of…

NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE CRUSTAL STRUCTURES OF SOUTH-EASTERN SICILY FROM REPROCESSING OF SEISMIC REFLECTION DATA IN THE FRAME OF THE SIRIPRO PROJECT

The buried Fold and Thrust Belt in Sicily: perspectives for future exploration.

The study region is a part of the Sicilian-Maghrebian Fold and Thrust Belt (FTB), a segment of the Alpine collisional belt, recently described as a result of both post-collisional convergence between Africa and Europe and roll-back of the subduction hinge of the Ionian lithosphere. The region (extending in central Sicily from the Madonie Mountains. to the eastern corner of the Iblean-Pelagian foreland through the impressive NE-SW trending Tertiary clastic and evaporitic range of the Caltanissetta trough) is located in an area where the main thrust system disappears beneath a wedge of deformed Neogene deposits. Earlier studies have neglected the importance of the potential target for hydroca…

Carta geologica d'italia alla scala 1:50.000 e note illustrative del foglio 595_Palermo

The Map Sheet 1:50.000 595 ”Palermo” includes marine and land areas of the topographic map sheet “Palermo”. The map sheet “Palermo” (Palermo Province) covers a part of the Sicily Fold and Thrust Belt (FTB) which has developed along the plate boundary between Africa and Europe in the Central Mediterranean. The Sicily FTB links the African Maghrebide to the Calabrian arc and Southern Apennines. The FTB and its submerged western and northern extensions are part- ly located between the Sardinia block and the Pelagian-Ionian sector, and partly beneath the central southern Tyrrhenian Sea. In this sector of the Mediterranean area, the main compressional move- ments, after the Paleogene Alpine orog…

Sicily's Foreland Fold/thrust Belt and Slab Roll-back: The SI.RI.PRO. Seismic Crustal Transect.

Contour map of the top of the regional geothermal reservoir of Sicily (Italy).

An integrated review of existing geological and geophysical data – partly acquired during oil and gas exploration – combined with new data provided by deep geothermal studies of selected key areas, was used for the 3D modeling and mapping of the top of the geothermal reservoir developed at a regional scale in Sicily (Central Mediterranean). The resulting 1:500,000 scale map covers the area of the whole Sicily (about 25,700 km2) and is devoted to represent the main input for both the thermal modeling and the evaluation of geothermal potential at a regional scale. As the map indicates the distribution at depth of a likely target for geothermal drilling, it can be also used as a rough indicato…

Il controllo della sismica a riflessione nella elaborazione dei Fogli Geologici del Progetto CARG nella Sicilia Occidentale Seismic reflection constraints in the frame of the CARG Project in Western Sicily

In the frame of the CARG Project, the interpretation of several seismic reflection profiles has provided new important constraints aimed at clarify the deep structural setting of the Central-Western Sicily and the related offshore fold and thrust belt. It has already been envisaged as a tectonic pile mainly made up of deep water Meso-Cenozoic carbonate units overriding a thick stack of Meso-Cenozoic carbonate platform units, detached from their crystalline basement. The data collected, constrained by wells logs, field and stratigraphic data, have improved the knowledge of a complex sector outcropping in the Corleone and Caccamo geologic sheets area. Seismic interpretation displayed the rela…

WALKING ALONG A CRUSTAL PROFILE ACROSS THE SICILY FOLD AND THRUST BELT