CENTRAL ADRIATIC BASIN

Since the Cretaceous time the Adria plate was the foreland of the South verging Alps. Since Tertiary it was involved by eastward tilting toward the Dinaric Chain and, successively, by the westward tilting related to the migration of the Apennine frontal thrusts (fig. 1.1A). In the western sector of the Central Adriatic Basin the foredeep basin originated by the Apennine Chain was filled by a prominent Pliocene sedimentary wedge (fig. 1.2). It was covered by the Pleistocene prograding sequence, due to the erosion of the Apennine Chain and of the Apulian Carbonate Platform, and by the Holocene prograding sequence which followed the last glacial period. The Plio-Quaternary sequence overlies the thin (some tens of meters) evaporite layer deposited during the MSC, known as Gessoso Solfifera formation, here called Bedded Unit (BU). In the Adriatic Basin this sequence is locally interrupted by some canyons: they originated mainly during the Messinian, but probably the erosion carried on until Early Pliocene [Roveri et al., 2005]. Seismic facies of MSC unconformities and units are described.