Late thrusting extensional collapse at the mountain front of the northern Apennines (Italy)

Abstract

Thrust‐related anticlines exposed at the mountain front of the Cenozoic Appenninic thrust‐and‐fold belt share the presence of hinterlandward dipping extensional fault zones running parallel to the hosting anticlines. These fault zones downthrow the crests and the backlimbs with displacements lower than, but comparable to, the uplift of the hosting anticline. Contrasting information feeds a debate about the relative timing between thrust‐related folding and beginning of extensional faulting, since several extensional episodes, spanning from early Jurassic to Quaternary, are documented in the central and northern Apennines. Mesostructural data were collected in the frontal anticline of the Sibillini thrust sheet, the mountain front in the Umbria‐Marche sector of the northern Apennines, with the aim of fully constraining the stress history recorded in the deformed multilayer. Compressional structures developed during thrust propagation and fold growth, mostly locating in the fold limbs. Extensional elements striking about perpendicular to the shortening direction developed during two distinct episodes: before fold growth, when the area deformed by outer‐arc extension in the peripheral bulge, and during a late to post thrusting stage. Most of the the extensional deformation occurred during the second stage, when the syn‐thrusting erosional exhumation of the structures caused the development of pervasive longitudinal extensional fracturing in the crestal sector of the growing anticline, which anticipated the subsequent widespread Quaternary extensional tectonics.