Rocco Favara

A regional‐scale discontinuity in western Sicily revealed by a multidisciplinary approach: A new piece for understanding the geodynamic puzzle of the southern Mediterranean

The results of an integrated stratigraphic, structural, geophysical, and geochemical study reveal the presence of a crustal discontinuity in western Sicily that, at present, runs roughly N-S along a band from San Vito Lo Capo to Sciacca (SVCS). The boundary between the two zones of this discontinuity is nearly orthogonal to the main thrust propagation of the Sicilian thrust-and-fold belt. The different Permian to Tertiary sedimentary evolution recorded by the two zones appears related to this discontinuity, with thick carbonate platforms in the western sector facing deep-water successions in the eastern one. The presence of Upper Triassic reefs, huge megabreccias bodies, and widespread submarine volcanisms along the transition zone suggest the presence of a long lasting weakness zone. This zone has been reactivated episodically as transpressional and/or transtensional faults in relation to the different geodynamic stress acting in central Mediterranean area in different epochs. We speculate that this transition zone has represented a segment of the passive margin of the Ionian Tethys. During the Maghrebian convergence a different style of deformation has affected the two sectors floored by different sedimentary multilayers. The orthogonal-to-oblique differential convergence between the two sectors has resulted in right-lateral transpressional motions, leading to oblique thrusting of deep-water-derived thrusts onto platform-derived thrusts associated with clockwise rotations. The oblique convergence is still ongoing as demonstrated by the seismicity of the area, by the geothermal field with high mantle-derived helium fluxes and by the GPS measurements collected by different authors.

Extensional deformations during Neogene chain building in Sicily

In the Madonie-Nebrodi Mts (Northern Sicily belt) both Mesozoic carbonate platform/basin-derived deformed successions and Neogene foredeep deposits outcrop. Thrust sheets piled-up southwards in thin-skin piggy-back sequence. The chain building process began during the Oligo-Miocene. The syntectonic deposits involved in the compressional tectonics give evidence that syn-sedimentary extensional faults developed during fold nucleation and amplification. Syn-sedimentary extensional faults affect the foredeep strata at different stratigraphic levels, which are bounded by unconformities. Normal faults and bedding show constant cut-off relationships and are progressively tilted youngwards as the effect of thrust-related folding. Since their formation, these normal faults have locally interacted with the thrust geometry by means of positive inversion within the older strata and with physically connected to reverse faults crosscutting the succession youngwards.