Towards a new marine structural model of Italy

Abstract

The exploitation of economic resources in marine environment and the assessment of natural hazards press a greater knowledge of the sea floor geology. Since the Structural Model of Italy was published in the 1991 by the CNR, new data have been collected concerning the marine geology of the sea floor surrounding Italy, also by means of up to date technologies (digital seismics, SBP Chirp, Multibeam). Data collected during the last decades in the frame of research programs as CROP MARE, CARG, morpho-bathymetric survey of the Tyrrhenian Sea, MAGIC, allow investigating the submerged geological structures with different temporal and spatial resolution. As consequence, at present marine geologists can draw geological maps where different geological features and related tectonic structures can be highlighted: 1) the depth of the Moho discontinuity; 2) the depth of the carbonate platform top; 3) the depth of the Messinian unconformity and the thickness of the Plio-Quaternary basin infill; 4) the Late Quaternary depositional sequence; 5) the main morpho-structural features (volcanoes, canyons, slides and slumps). Geological maps containing all of this information allow to define the submerged stratigraphic and structural setting and to reconstruct the geological evolution of the Italian sea floors, helping in to assess the marine geological hazard. The criteria for representation must be chosen so as to facilitate the correlation with the adjacent emerged areas. A particular attention will be paid to the late orogeny structures that controlled the Quaternary morphogenesis and mostly responsible for the present day morpho-structural setting of the Italian sea floor as well as the seismicity of this region. In this communication, a few geological map examples coming from the Sicily offshore will be shown to debate the scale and the most appropriate methodologies to be used for the representation of a new structural model of the Italian sea floor.