Sedimentology, architecture, and depositional evolution of a coarse-grained submarine canyon fill from the Gelasian (early Pleistocene) of the Peri-Adriatic basin, Offida, central Italy

Abstract

The early Pleistocene stratigraphic succession of the Peri-Adriatic basin, eastern central Italy, records the filling of an elongate, N–S oriented piggy-back basin located east of the growing Apennine fold-thrust belt. During the Gelasian (2.588–1.806 Ma), large volumes of gravel, sand and mud derived from the emergent Apennines were redistributed into the basin through a number of slope erosional fairways. These sediment conduits are preserved in the rock record as a series of coarse-grained canyon-fill successions that provide an opportunity for assessing, from an outcrop perspective, how this type of deep-water depositional systems evolves and fills. The present study uses measured stratigraphic sections, photopanels, paleocurrent data, careful lithological mapping, and well-log data from a nearby exploration well to constrain the internal organization of one of these canyon fills, referred to herein as the Offida Canyon. A detailed facies analysis suggests that a variety of gravity-driven subaqueous flows were involved in sediment transport and deposition within the submarine canyon, including slumps, cohesive debris flows, and high- and low-density turbidity currents. Five main lithofacies reflecting both canyon-bounding slope deposits and canyon-filling turbidite and debrite depositional elements have been identified within the exposed succession: (i) clast-supported conglomerates (gravel-rich channel complexes); (ii) medium- to thick-bedded sandstones (overbank lobe); (iii) medium- to very thin-bedded sandstones and mudstones (levee-overbank); (iv) pebbly mudstones and chaotic beds (mudstone-rich mass-transport deposits); and (v) massive mudstones (hemipelagic background deposits). These lithofacies are organized in recurring successions and define fining-upward packages that are regarded as the deep-water expression of high-frequency depositional sequences. Each sequence comprises the sedimentary record of major phases of canyon activity and comprises the following surfaces and systems tracts, in ascending stratigraphic order: (i) a pronounced surface of erosion (sequence boundary) generated by efficient turbidity currents during a period of erosion and complete bypass of sediment to more basinward settings; (ii) a lowstand systems tract composed of a diverse assemblage of genetically related lithofacies (channel-complex conglomerates, levee sandy heterolithics, and overbank lobe sheet-like sandstones) laid down by turbidity currents largely bypassing the area; and (iii) a transgressive to forced regressive systems tract comprising mass-transport deposits produced by instability of shelf-edge staging areas and/or failure of canyon walls when coastal sediment sources were far from the shelf edge. Correlation between sequences and oxygen isotope curve suggests that the recurring fluctuations in sedimentary activity of the submarine canyon are related to the switching on and off of coarse clastic sediments to the slope in response to obliquity-driven (41 ky duration) glacio-eustatic sea-level oscillations, which modulated timing of sediment storage on the shelf and its redistribution beyond the shelf edge.