Central-southern Sicily Research Articles

Chemical Profile and Healthy Properties of Sicilian Diplotaxis harra subsp. crassifolia (Raf.) Maire.

This study was aimed at investigating the phytochemical profile and bioactivity of Diplotaxis harra subsp. crassifolia (Brassicaceae), a species from central-southern Sicily (Italy), where it is consumed as a salad. For this purpose, LC-ESI/HRMSn analysis of the ethanolic extract was performed, highlighting the occurrence, along with flavonoids, hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives, and oxylipins, of sulfated secondary metabolites, including glucosinolates and various sulfooxy derivatives (e.g., C13 nor-isoprenoids, hydroxyphenyl, and hydroxybenzoic acid derivatives), most of which were never reported before in the Brassicaeae family or in the Diplotaxis genus. Following ethnomedicinal information regarding this species used for the treatment of various pathologies such as diabetes and hypercholesterolemia, D. harra ethanolic extract was evaluated for its antioxidant potential using different in vitro tests such as 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid), Ferric Reducing Ability Power, and β-carotene bleaching tests. The inhibitory activity of carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes (α-amylase and α-glucosidase) and pancreatic lipase was also assessed. In the 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid assay, an IC50 value comparable to the positive control ascorbic acid (2.87 vs. 1.70 μg/mL, respectively) was obtained. The wild-wall rocket salad extract showed a significant α-amylase inhibitory effect. Obtained results indicate that Sicilian wild-wall rocket contains phytochemicals that can prevent hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and obesity.

Analisi antropologica dei reperti osteologici tardo-antichi provenienti dal contesto ipogeico di Licata. L'ipogeo Zirafi-settore G ‒ Licata (Sicilia)

From the third century BC until late antiquity, the settlement of the ancient Finziade (Licata) was characterized by intense socio- cultural dynamics that significantly changed the social and economic assets of central-southern Sicily. The Zirafi hypogeum with its an architectural funerary unicum of the time was part of this multiform scenario. Its complex and the articulated depositional plan reflects a long phase of sepulchral use. Here we report on the anthropological analysis of human skeletal remains, found during the systematic excavation campaigns of the University of Messina in collaboration with the Anthropology Laboratory of the University of Palermo. The study aims to combine the evaluations of the human findings with the previous historical and archaeological literature. We defined the use (intensity and typology) of the tombs, placed inside the hypogeum. Our results support previous assumptions about the status of the city during late antiquity.

Density of Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni in centralsouthern Sicily (Italy)

[In Sicily, the Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni is a summer species, partly wintering; irregularly distributed in steppe habitats. In an area of 5,000 km² of central southern Sicily have been recorded, between 1977 and 2016, 127 breeding pairs, 123 of them concentrated in 5 areas, and 4 isolated pairs in suitable sites. In area A the density was of 1 pair in 4 km²; in area B of 1 pair in 21 km²; in area C of 1 pair in 10 km²; in area D of 1 pair in 12 km²; in area E of 1 pair in 3,3 km². The density was higher between 50 and 650 m of altitude.]
 
 [Article in Italian]

Meningoencephalitis in central-southern sicily: most frequently observed viruses

Meningoencephalitis in central-southern sicily: most frequently observed viruses

Layered lower crust and mantle reflectivity as imaged by a re-processed crustal seismic profile from Sicily in the central Mediterranean

Abstract Though Sicily is a key area for understanding the central Mediterranean tectonics, a number of questions on its dynamics remains open due to the lack of detailed data on the lithospheric structure. Deep reflectivity images of the African lithosphere, beneath Sicily, have been derived from the re-processing of the crustal seismic reflection stack (SI.RI.PRO. Project). Of specific interest was the imaging, beneath central-southern Sicily, of a thinned crust with a reflective, “layered” pattern for the lower crust that differs from the one, thicker and sub-transparent, of the northern-central sector. Brittle deformation in the upper crystalline crust along a low-angle normal fault and sub-horizontal sub-Moho events are the main features, spatially associated with the “layered”, attenuated lower crust. Geological implications, which are related to the above-mentioned crustal characters, that allow us to suppose two combined hypotheses (the first suggesting that the crustal features derive from the effects of Permian and Mesozoic rifting cycles, the second connecting the crustal thinning to the latest Pliocene-Pleistocene volcanic activity and tectonics), are here discussed. The imaging of the Moho patterns and the crustal/sub-crustal reflectivity characteristics, here illustrated for the first time, could provide constraints for the geodynamic processes governing this area where an interaction between African and Tyrrhenian European plates occurs.

Evidence of large scale deformation patterns from GPS data in the Italian subduction boundary

We present the velocity field in Italy derived from over 300 continuous GPS stations operated in the 1998–2009 time span. The GPS network maps the whole country with a mean inter-site distance of about 50 km and provides a valuable source of data to study the ongoing deformation processes in the central Mediterranean. The estimated horizontal and vertical velocity fields show major significant features and also less known second-order kinematic features. A general uplift characterizes the whole Apennines and Alpine belts that follow the topographic ridge, whereas the Po Plain shows a gradually increasing subsidence from west to east. The Apennines belt displays a distinctive extension (50–80 10 − 9 yr − 1 ) while compressive tectonic regimes characterize northern Sicily, eastern Alps and the northeast front of the northern Apennines (25–50 10 − 9 yr − 1 ). Second-order deformation patterns, on large scale wavelength (~ 100 km) have been detected on the accretionary prism of central and southern Apennines that are highly correlated with other geophysical data (Vp anomalies, seismic anisotropy, etc.) and related to deep rooted sections (70–100 km), marked by different subduction regimes. Apparently at this scale-length the observed deformations are governed by the lithosphere as a whole. We interpret these deformations as a result of different subduction mechanisms, such as variations of the subduction rollback velocity affecting different segments of the subduction zone and/or to mantle flows in proximity of the slab edges. Further south, in central-southern Sicily, we detect a contraction of (− 1.1 ± 0.2) mm/yr that probably accommodates part of the Africa–Eurasia convergence on the outer thrust front of the Apennines–Maghrebides belt. This hypothesis agrees with an independent analysis of the seismicity associated to the Sicilian Basal Thrust, thought to be still active. The ITRF2005 estimates of the new GPS velocity field are available also in SINEX format as supplementary file S1.

Active thrusting as a possible seismogenic source in Sicily (Southern Italy): Some insights from integrated structural–kinematic and seismological data

This paper proposes a new seismogenic interpretation of mainland and central-southern Sicily, based on an integrated structural–kinematic–seismological approach. Through analysis of available structural and geophysical data, the tectonic setting, the major kinematic units and the crust geometry of the Sicilian southward-verging fold-and-thrust belt system are schematized in sections and in map form. The depth-contour lines of the outermost basal thrust plane, which dates back to Plio-Pleistocene times with some evidence of Holocene activity, are reconstructed. This plane, here named Sicilian Basal Thrust (SBT), emerges along the southward convex Sciacca–Gela–Catania front and reaches the base of the crust at a depth of about 30 km beneath northern Sicily. Additionally, an important regional upper crust splay, with the same arched shape, has been identified some kilometres northward. In order to detect any possible indication of seismogenic activity linked to ongoing deformation of the SBT and its splay, we analyzed the distribution and kinematics of the instrumental seismicity in the period between 1981 and 2006. Particular attention was given to the background seismicity (Ml up to 4.6) located beneath the sedimentary cover at Mt. Etna, as it allows individuating a northward deepening seismogenic volume undergoing an average N–S compression, which corresponds well with the SBT geometry in section view. A merged dataset of all the known major historical and instrumental events (moment magnitude ≥ 4.5) that occurred above the SBT 0-to-30 km depth-contour lines from 217 B.C. to 2006 was compiled and analyzed. Based on information from instrumental data and/or on speculations on the shape and extent of the historical earthquake macroseismic fields, two major ranges of hypocentral depths have been schematically identified within the merged dataset: an upper crust range (in average < ~ 10 km) and a mid-to-lower crust range. Focal mechanisms available in the literature show prevailing reverse and reverse-oblique kinematics, compatible with a nearly average N–S shortening and with some field evidence of active fold-and-thrust deformation at the SBT front and along its inner splay. Several moderate earthquakes (nearly 40 in the last 400 years with moment magnitude ranging from 4.5 to 5.5) and a few more energetic events with moment magnitude up to ~ 6.0, such as the Mineo 1624, the Belice 1968 and the Catania 1818 events, can be attributed to an ongoing activity of the SBT. In previous studies, these events had been often attributed to isolated N–S strike-slip sources located within the Hyblean-Pelagian foreland, while all the interposed areas had been considered aseismic, as well as the SBT had been considered inactive. The identification in the SBT of a unique regional-scale seismogenic structure capable to connect the active deformation and the seismic activity of the western, central and eastern areas of mainland Sicily and those of central-southern Sicily evidently has strong implications in terms of seismic hazard assessment. In fact, it allows the definition of a new homogeneous compressional seismotectonic province, which extends between the SBT surface front line and the surface projection of the 25 km SBT depth-contour line. A subdivision in two sub-provinces, a shallow one above the 0–10 km SBT segment and a deep one above the 10-to-25 km SBT segment, is also considered and the energy released of the associate earthquakes evaluated. To conclude, the proposed model is discussed in comparison with other models from the literature and some important open problems are put forwards.

Mesozoic and Paleogene megabreccias in Southern Sicily: New data on the Triassic Paleomargin of the Siculo-Tunisian platform

Mesozoic and Paleogene clastic carbonates in deep-water successions outcropping in the Sicani mountains (central southern Sicily) represent debris-flow and turbidite deposits accumulated in slope/base-of-slope sectors of the Sicanian Basin, a Permian to Miocene deep-water sedimentary domain of Sicily. Reef-derived carbonates of late Triassic age are frequently found among the clastic elements of these deposits, in association with other shallow and deep-water Mesozoic carbonates. The provide us with new data on the stratigraphic setting of a platform paleomargin now buried beneath the Sicilian thrust and fold belt. This paleomargin bounded the wide middle and upper Triassic carbonate platform which is now known in the subsurface of the Southern Sicilian thrust and fold belt. This paleomargin bounded the wide middle and upper Triassic carbonate platform which is now known in the subsurface of the Southern Sicilian mainland and offshore in the Pelagian Platform, from the Malta escarpment to the Sciacca and Trapani areas through the Hyblean Plateau. The hinge zones between this platform domain and the Sicanian basin were particularly affected by the paleostresses related to the Mesozoic and Paleogene evolution of the Southwestern Tethys. The sedimentary successions of these areas recorded repeated episodes of progradation, aggradation, backstepping, uplift and erosion of the platform-basin system, under eustatic and tectonic forcing.