HR: 1340h
AN: T33C-0574    [Abstracts]
TI: Fan deltas, coastal terraces and the uplift of Calabria: The Neogene evolution of the Crati/Sibari basins
AU: Seeber, L
EM: nano@ldeo.columbia.edu
AF: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 61 rt 9w, Palisades, NY 10964 United States
AU: * Stark, C P
EM: cstark@ldeo.columbia.edu
AF: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 61 rt 9w, Palisades, NY 10964 United States
AU: Dewez, T
EM: t.dewez@brgm.fr
AF: Natural Risks and Land Management Dept, BRGM, 3 Av. C. Guillemin, Orleans, 45000 France
AB: The Calabrian forearc of southern Italy is characterized by rapid post-Miocene uplift (~1 mm/y) whose tectonic origin remains a matter of dispute. Evidence for this uplift is recorded in the Calabrian peninsula in at least two ways. First, the landscape is cut by paleo-cliffs and marine abrasion surfaces that form staircases of abandoned shorelines. Second, valley-fringing sequences of coarse clastics exhibit magnificent Gilbert-type fan deltas of marine origin. These two phenomena have generally been studied separately, even though both provide excellent and likely coeval constraints on relative sea-level during the late Pleistocene. Here we present a preliminary synthesis of the Crati Valley deltas and the strandlines of the Sibari Plain. Through a combination of field observation and analysis of air photographs and digital elevation (SRTM DEM) data, we examine the relative timing of fan delta deposition, marine terrace formation, and penecontemporaneous faulting. This expanded correlation of coeval surfaces may help to establish whether the uplift is uniform or time transgressive. We evaluate our results in light of an oft-quoted model for Calabrian uplift, in which the rapid rise of the peninsula is thought to have begun at around 700~ka. Our results highlight the urgent need for better age control of marine deposits and surfaces tentatively assigned (through correlation and extrapolation) to the late Pleistocene.
UR: http://geomorph.ldeo.columbia.edu/catscan2
DE: 8104 Continental margins: convergent
DE: 8169 Sedimentary basin processes
DE: 8170 Subduction zone processes (1031, 3060, 3613, 8413)
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005