Elongated theropod tracks from the Cretaceous Apenninic Carbonate Platform of southern Latium (central Italy)

The normal fault-system responsible of the 2009 M_w 6.1 L'Aquila earthquake (Paganica-San Demetrio fault-system) comprises several narrow, fault-parallel valleys of controversial origin. We investigated a key section of the southeastern portion of this fault network along the small Verupola Valley. In order to characterize its nature and possible tectonic activity, we applied multiple-geosciences techniques able to image at depth the structure associated to this peculiar landform. We integrated magnetometry, 2-D P wave and resistivity tomography, surface waves and seismic noise analysis coupled with field mapping, shallow boreholes and trenching. According to our results, the Verupola Valley is a ∼30–40-m-deep graben controlled by a SW-dipping master fault and synthetic splays paired with an antithetic NE-dipping fault. The SW-dipping splays are active and cut very shallow (<2 m deep) Late Pleistocene sediments. The small amount of cumulated vertical offset (∼15 m) across the conjugated system may indicate a young fault inception or very low Quaternary slip-rates. Due to its structural continuity with the adjacent mapped strands of the Paganica–San Demetrio fault network, we relate the Verupola Valley to the recent activity of the southeastern segment of this fault system. We also suggest that other fault-parallel valleys can have the same tectonic origin and setting of the Verupola Valley. This latter represents a scale-independent analogue from metric scale (exposed in the palaeoseismological trenches) to the Middle Aterno Basin scale (seen from seismic profiles and fault mapping). Overall, the imaged structural style is coherent with the regional tectonic setting due to Quaternary crustal extension.

International audienceThe complex magnetic and gravity anomaly fields of the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea provide a record of the complicated properties and evolution of the underlying crust. Geologic interpretation of these anomalies is hindered by the effects of anomaly superposition and source ambiguity inherent to potential field analysis. A common approach to minimizing interpretational ambiguities is to consider analyses of anomaly correlations. Spectral correlation filters are used to separate positively and negatively correlated anomaly features based on the correlation coefficient given by the cosine of the phase difference between common wavenumber components. This procedure is applied to reduced-to-pole magnetic and first vertical derivative gravity anomalies for mapping correlative crustal magnetization and density contrasts. Adding and subtracting the standardized outputs of the filters yield summed (SLFI) and differenced (DLFI) local favourability indices that respectively highlight positive and negative feature correlations in the anomaly data sets. Correlative maxima mainly reflect volcanic structures, and secondarily intrusive bodies and pre-Tortonian carbonates of the Maghrebian chain and the basement rocks of the Sardinia eastern margin. Correlative minima mostly mark sediment-filled peri-Tyrrhenian structural basins related to the Pliocene extensional tectonics, and intra-slope marine depressions related to post-Pliocene and still active compressional tectonics off northern Sicily. Prominent inverse anomaly correlations mainly reflect crustal features around the southern margin of the Tyrrhenian Sea that include higher density, lower magnetization pelagic-to-terrigenous and flysch-type nappes of the Sicilian-Maghrebian chain, as well as lower density, higher magnetization sediments filling depressions of the chain, and syn-rift sediments of south eastern Sardinia