Cretaceous-Paleogene abortive rift in the southern Adria domain

What is it about?

This study provides new structural, stratigraphic, and geochemical data and a literature review of the Cretaceous–Paleogene stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, tectonics, and magmatism in the southern Apennines belt, Italy, with the aim to demonstrate the occurrence of an Albian to Eocene abortive rifting stage in the southern Adria domain.

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Why is it important?

The time interval between Jurassic rifting and Miocene shortening still remains encrypted. Most of the studies suggest the presence of a tectonically quiescent period from Cretaceous to Paleogene. In this study we clearly show that, on the contrary, the tectono‐stratigraphic evolution of the Adria domain was characterized by episodes of coeval uplift and drowning with a large amount of calciclastic sediments supply from the emerging sectors deposited in the basins surrounding the carbonate platforms.The Albian–Eocene interval was also characterized by the occurrence of anorogenic magmatism and synsedimentary extensional faulting that, along with the changed sedimentary facies distribution, points out for a crustal‐scale extensional tectonics.

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