Giacomuzzi, Genny

The subduction of continental lithosphere is a complex process because the buoyancy of the crust is higher than the oceanic and should resist sinking into the mantle. Anyway, studies on the Alpine-Himalayan collision system indicate that a large portion of the continental crust is subducted, while some material is accreted in the orogens. The Apennine is a perfect case for studying how such processes evolve, thanks to high quality seismic images that illuminate a critical depth range not commonly resolved in many collisional settings. In this paper, we show the structure of the Apennines orogen, as jointly revealed by seismicity and deep structure from regional and teleseismic tomography and receiver function profiles. The westward subducting Adria lithosphere is well defined along the orogen showing a mid-crustal delamination. Seismicity within the underthrusting lower crust and velocity anomalies in the mantle wedge highlight how the subduction evolution is entangled with the liberation of fluids. The eclogitization of subducted material enhances the fluid release into the wedge, the delamination and retreat of the Adria plate. This delamination/subduction generates a coupled compression and extension system that migrates eastward following the retreat of the lithosphere, with broad sets of normal faults that invert or interfere with pre-existing compressional structures all over the roof plate. The sparseness and non-ubiquity of intermediate depth earthquakes along the subduction panel suggest that the brittle response of the subducting crust is governed by its different composition and fluid content. Therefore, the lower crust composition appears essential in conditioning the evolution of continental subduction.

Petrologic and geophysical observations floored the paradigm shift on the subduction of the continental lithosphere. In long-lived collisional boundaries like the Alpine Himalaya belt, portions of continental lithosphere are pushed down to great depths and then exhumed, as testified by outcrops of UHP materials. The Mediterranean region is a clear expression of this enigmatic process. On a short space and time scale, the Apennines exhibits a complex pattern of across-belt extension, associated with under-thrusting of continental lithosphere and a variegated suite of magmatic products. Here we show that the delamination of the crust is essential to favor the subduction of the continental lithosphere, a process that is controlled by pre-existing heterogeneity of the uppermost mantle. Teleseismic tomography revealed significant compositional anomalies in the uppermost mantle that controlled the way in which the lithosphere is delaminated. The continental subduction is associated with magmatism, where the variety of products reflects differences in mantle metasomatism that are only in part related to the subduction process.

A long-lasting question in earthquake physics is why slip on faults occurs as creep or dynamic rupture. We compute passive measurements of the seismic P wave velocity gradient across the San Andreas Fault near Parkfield, where this transition of slip mode occurs at a scale of a few kilometers. Unbiased measurements are obtained through the application of a new Bayesian local earthquake tomographic code that avoids the imposition of any user-defined, initial velocity-contrast across the fault, or any damping scheme that may cause biased amplitude in retrieved seismic velocities. We observe that across-fault velocity gradients correlate with the slip behavior of the fault. The P wave velocity contrast decays from 20% in the fault section that experience dynamic rupture to 4% in the creeping section, suggesting that rapid change of material properties and attitude to sustain supra-hydrostatic fluid pressure are conditions for development of dynamic rupture. Low Vp and high Vp/Vs suggest that fault rheology at shallow depth is conversely controlled by low frictional strength material.

We present high‐resolution elastic models and relocated seismicity of a very active segment of the Apennines normal faulting system, computed via transdimensional local earthquake tomography (trans‐D LET). Trans‐D LET, a fully nonlinear approach to seismic tomography, robustly constrains high‐velocity anomalies and inversions of P wave velocity, i.e., decreases of VP with depth, without introducing bias due to, e.g., a starting model, and giving the possibility to investigate the relation between fault structure, seismicity, and fluids. Changes in seismicity rate and recurring seismic swarms are frequent in the Apennines extensional belt. Deep fluids, upwelling from the delaminating continental lithosphere, are thought to be responsible for seismicity clustering in the upper crust and lubrication of normal faults during swarms and large earthquakes. We focus on the tectonic role played by the Alto Tiberina low‐angle normal fault (ATF), finding displacements across the fault consistent with long‐term accommodation of deformation. Our results show that recent seismic swarms affecting the area occur within a 3 km thick, high VP/VS, densely cracked, and overpressurized evaporitic layer, composed of dolostones and anhydrites. A persistent low VP, low VP/VS volume, present on top of and along the ATF low‐angle detachment, traces the location of mantle‐derived CO2, the upward flux of which contributes to cracking within the evaporitic layer.

We present high-resolution Vp models of the Middle Aterno basin obtained by multi-scale non-linear controlled-source tomography. Seismic data have been collected along four dense wide-aperture profiles, that run SW-NE for a total length of ~ 6 km in the hangingwall of the Paganica - S. Demetrio Fault, source of the 6th April 2009 (Mw 6.3) L'Aquila normal-faulting earthquake. Seismic tomography expands the knowledge of the basin with high spatial resolution and depth penetration (> 300 m), illuminating the Meso-Cenozoic substratum that corresponds to high-Vp regions (Vp > 3500-4000 m/s). Low Vp (1500-2000 m/s) lacustrine sediments (Early Pleistocene in age) are imaged only in the SW sector of the basin, where they are up to 200 m thick and lie below coarse fluvial and alluvial fan deposits. The overall infill consists of Early to Late Pleistocene alluvial fan and fluvial sediments between the Paganica Fault and the Bazzano ridge, with Vp reaching 3000 m/s for the oldest conglomeratic bodies. The substratum has an articulated topography. The main depocenter, ~ 350 m deep, is in the SW sector of the basin south of the Bazzano ridge. Remarkably, this depocenter and the overlying thick lacustrine body match the area of maximum coseismic subsidence observed after the 2009 earthquake. In the Paganica area, Vp images unravel large steps in the substratum related to two unreported SW-dipping buried strands, synthetic to the Paganica Fault, with ~ 250 m associated total vertical throw. This finding has important implications on the long-term history of the Paganica – S. Demetrio Fault system, whose total vertical displacement has been previously underestimated. An additional ~ 250 m vertical offset along this complex Quaternary extensional structure should therefore be considered.

We report a new model of the upper mantle structure beneath Italy obtained by means of P-wave teleseismic tomography. Besides the recent and remarkable development of the Italian Seismic Network, a high model resolution has been achieved improving the inversion method upon the ACH method used in previous investigations and picking high quality arrival times with the Multi-Channel Cross-Correlation technique. The finer details of our Vp model yield new insights into the heterogeneous structure of the Adria continental lithosphere involved in the collision between the Africa and Europe plates. A wide low Vp anomaly located in the northern Adria mantle, facing the Alpine high Vp slab, supports the idea that the Adria lithosphere has been hydrated and thinned during the Alpine subduction. We argue that this mantle softening may have played a key role in favoring the subsequent delamination of the Adria lithosphere in the northern Apennines. We hypothesize that delamination of continental lithosphere previously thinned in a back-arc setting may be considered a key process to favor subduction polarity reversal and recycling of continental material into the mantle circulation. Conversely, in the central-southern Apennines, the velocity structure is consistent with the existence of a deeper oceanic slab that flattens at the base of the upper mantle, in agreement with the widely accepted geodynamic evolution of the central Mediterranean by slab retreat and back-arc spreading. The oceanic slab is discontinuously detached from the surface plate, suggesting a different structure of the Adria lithosphere, which resists subduction instead of favoring delamination.