Miocene thrusting in the eastern Sila Massif: Implication for the evolution of the Calabria-Peloritani orogenic wedge (southern Italy)

Abstract

Alpine orogens in the central Mediterranean region have revealed the concomitance of crustal extension in back-arc domain and crustal shortening in frontal domain. Quantitative data of deformation in the frontal orogenic wedges are necessary to understand how the shortening-extension pair evolves in terms of structures, orogenic transport, timing, and exhumation rate. This paper deals with kinematics and ages of the frontal thrust systems of the Calabria-Peloritani Arc (Italy) exposed in the eastern Sila Massif. We first present structural fieldwork, onshore and offshore well log data, and new apatite fission-track (AFT) thermochronology. Then, we describe the structural architecture of the studied area as an ENE-verging stacking of thrust sheets involving basement units and syn-orogenic sediments. The AFT study documents that thrust sheets entered the partial annealing zone from 18 Ma to 13 Ma. This Early-Middle Miocene thrusting phase was coeval with exhumation of high-pressure/low temperature metamorphic rocks in the hinterland of the orogen (Coastal Chain area), mainly driven by top-to-the-W extensional tectonics. Opposite kinematic shear senses (contractional top-to-the-E and extensional top-to-the-W) and different exhumation rates (slow in the frontal, more rapid in the hinterland) are framed in a tectonic scenario of a critically tapered orogenic wedge during the eastward retreating of the Apennine slab.