Layered lower crust and mantle reflectivity as imaged by a re-processed crustal seismic profile from Sicily in the central Mediterranean

Abstract Though Sicily is a key area for understanding the central Mediterranean tectonics, a number of questions on its dynamics remains open due to the lack of detailed data on the lithospheric structure. Deep reflectivity images of the African lithosphere, beneath Sicily, have been derived from the re-processing of the crustal seismic reflection stack (SI.RI.PRO. Project). Of specific interest was the imaging, beneath central-southern Sicily, of a thinned crust with a reflective, “layered” pattern for the lower crust that differs from the one, thicker and sub-transparent, of the northern-central sector. Brittle deformation in the upper crystalline crust along a low-angle normal fault and…