Geometry of a Miocene submarine canyon and associated sedimentary facies in southeastern Calabria, southern Italy

Major erosion surfaces cutting into basement rocks define several submarine paleocanyons. Paleocanyon fills consist of large, lenticular conglomerate bodies that are 200-580 m thick and 3-6 km wide. The best example of these paleocanyons is located near the town of Stilo. The conglomeratic canyon fill and the adjacent muddy slope deposits are both overlain by a laterally continuous sequence, 160 m thick, composed of two units of fine-grained, thin-bedded turbidites alternating with two units of thicker sandstone and minor pebble-conglomerate beds. The paleocanyons probably originated as subaerial valleys in response to a major fall in relative sea level at 30 Ma and were later submerged by a combination of relative sea-level rise and concomitant tectonic activity. -from Authors