The Puglia uplift (SE Italy): An anomaly in the foreland of the Apenninic subduction due to buckling of a thick continental lithosphere

Abstract

The Apenninic foreland shows two distinct structural signatures comparing the central Adriatic Sea and the Puglia region. During the Pliocene‐Pleistocene the central Adriatic underwent high subsidence rates due to the eastward rollback of the hinge of the west dipping Apenninic subduction. The Puglia region and the Bradanic foredeep are located southward along strike in the same foreland, but, in contrast with the central Adriatic, after Pliocene‐early Pleistocene subsidence they underwent uplift since the middle Pleistocene. The geometry and the kinematics of the frontal accretionary wedge and related foreland changed from that moment on between the two areas. At the front of the central northern Apennines, off scraping and subsidence continued, whereas the foredeep and foreland of the southern Apennines were buckled. Those differences are interpreted as being due to the larger subduction hinge rollback rate since middle Pleistocene of the central Adriatic lithosphere (70 km thick) with respect to the thicker Puglia (110 km). The different thicknesses of the continental crust and lithosphere were inherited from the Mesozoic rifting that disrupted the Adriatic plate. The different thicknesses appear to have controlled the variable degree of flexure of the lithosphere and its asthenospheric penetration rate. The Tremiti E–W alignment is the right‐lateral lithospheric transfer zone of those different tectonic regimes. The consequent different dip of the subduction in the two sections (steeper west of Puglia) could also explain the lower elevation of the southern Apennines, compared to their central‐northern sector.