Tectonosedimentary Evolution of the Crotone Basin, Italy: Implications for Calabrian Arc Geodynamics: ABSTRACT

Analysis of outcrop, well, and offshore seismic data has allowed the Neogene tectonosedimentary evolution of an Ionian Sea satellite basin to be outlined. The Crotone basin contains a series of postorogenic sediments deposited since Serravallian time atop a complex nappe system emplaced in the early Miocene. The basin's evolution can be considered predominantly one of distension in a fore-arc setting punctuated by compressional events. The earliest sediments (middle-late Miocene) consist of conglomerates, marls, and evaporites infilling a rapidly subsiding basin. A basin-wide Messinian unconformity and associated intraformational folding mark the close of this sedimentary cycle. Reestablishment of marine conditions in the early Pliocene is documented by sediments which show a distinct color banding and apparent rhythmicity, which may represent the basin margin to lowermost Pliocene marl/limestone rhythmic couplets present in southern Calabria. A bounding unconformity surface of middle Pliocene age (3.0 Ma), which corresponds to a major northwest-southeast compressional event, closes this depositional sequence. The basin depocenter shifted markedly toward the southeast, and both chaotic and strong subparallel reflector seismic facies of wide-ranging thicknesses fill the depositional topography created during this tectonic episode. Basin subsidence decreases dramatically in the late Pliocene and cessates in response to basin margin uplift inmore » the early Pleistocene. The chronostratigraphic hierarchy of these depositional sequences allows them to constrain the deformational history of the basin. In addition, similar depositional hierarchies in adjacent basins (i.e., Paola, Cefalu, and Tyrrhenian Sea) allow them to tie the stratigraphy and evolution of the Crotone basin to the geodynamic evolution of the Calabrian arc system.« less