Tectonics and seismicity of the Tindari Fault System, southern Italy: Crustal deformations at the transition between ongoing contractional and extensional domains located above the edge of a subducting slab

The Tindari Fault System (southern Tyrrhenian
Sea, Italy) is a regional zone of brittle deformation
located at the transition between ongoing contractional
and extensional crustal compartments and lying above
the western edge of a narrow subducting slab. Onshore
structural data, an offshore seismic reflection profile,
and earthquake data are analyzed to constrain the
present geometry of the Tindari Fault System and its
tectonic evolution since Neogene, including the
present seismicity. Results show that this zone of
deformation consists of a broad NNW trending system
of faults including sets of right-lateral, left-lateral, and
extensional faults as well as early strike-slip faults
reworked under late extension. Earthquakes and other
neotectonic data provide evidence that the Tindari
Fault System is still active in the central and northern
sectors and mostly accommodates extensional or rightlateral
transtensional displacements on a diffuse
array of faults. From these data, a multiphase
tectonic history is inferred, including an early phase
as a right-lateral strike-slip fault and a late extensional
reworking under the influence of the subductionrelated
processes, which have led to the formation of
the Tyrrhenian back-arc basin. Within the present,
regional, geodynamic context, the Tindari Fault
System is interpreted as an ongoing accommodation
zone between the adjacent contractional and
extensional crustal compartments, these tectonic
compartments relating to the complex processes of
plate convergence occurring in the region. The Tindari
Fault System might also be included in an incipient,
oblique-extensional, transfer zone linking the ongoing
contractional belts in the Calabrian-Ionian and southern Tyrrhenian compartments.

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