Reply to “Comment on Manuella et al. ‘The Hyblean xenolith suite (Sicily): an unexpected legacy of the Ionian–Tethys realm’ by Beccaluva et al. (2015)”

Abstract

In our paper (Manuella et al. 2015), which arose from our 30-year-long research on the Hyblean xenoliths, we discussed an exhaustive dataset retrieved from the literature. We concluded that the unexposed basement of southeastern Sicily and neighboring areas consists of a remnant of the Paleo–Mesozoic Ionian–Tethyan oceanic lithosphere. Our viewpoint is opposite to the most popular theory that the Hyblean–Pelagian foreland domain is part of the Africa continental plate. We acknowledge some comments by Beccaluva et al. (2015) since they prompted us to explicit some background information given as implicit in our paper and hence to reaffirm with more emphasis fundamental aspects of our research, strongly confirming our previous conclusions.