Terraced Landforms Onshore and Offshore the Cilento Promontory (South-Eastern Tyrrhenian Margin) and Their Significance as Quaternary Records of Sea Level Changes

Abstract

Climate change and tectonic uplift are the dominant forcing mechanisms responsible for the formation of long and narrow terraced landforms in a variety of geomorphic settings; and marine terraces are largely used to reconstruct the Quaternary glacial and interglacial climates. Along the Mediterranean coast, a considerable number of popular scientific articles have acknowledged a range of marine terraces in the form of low-relief surfaces resulting from the combined effects of tectonic uplift and eustatic sea-level fluctuations, as relevant geomorphological indicators of past sea-level high-stands. With the exception of a few recent studies on the significance of submarine depositional terraces (SDT), submerged terraced landforms have been less investigated. By integrating different marine and terrestrial datasets, our work brings together and re-examines numerous terraced landforms that typify the Cilento Promontory and its offshore region. In this area, studies since the 1960s have allowed the recognition of well-defined Middle to Upper Pleistocene marine terraces on land, while only a few studies have investigated the occurrences of late Pleistocene SDT. Furthermore, to date, no studies have consistently integrated findings. For our work, we correlated major evidence of emerged and submarine terraced landforms in order to support an improved understanding of the tectono-geomorphological evolution of the Cilento Promontory and to further clarify the geomorphological significance of submerged terraces.