The Calabrian Arc Subduction Complex in the Ionian Sea: Structure, Evolution and Seismic Hazard

The Calabrian Arc (CA) evolved during Cenozoic time in response to Eurasia-Africa convergence as part of the Apennine subduction system (Fig. 1). Its evolution is controlled by the south-eastward retreat of the subduction zone that caused rifting and lithospheric thinning culminating in the opening of the Tyrrhenian Sea (MALINVERNO AND RYAN, 1986; DOGLIONI et alii, 1999; FACCENNA et alii, 2001) The thick sedimentary section of the African plate, at the toe of the CA, has been scraped off from the descending plate, and piled up along thrust faults resulting in the emplacement of a thick (up to 10 km) and about 200-300 km wide accretionary complex. We analysed the structure and evolution of the CA subduction complex through an integrated geophysical approach involving multi-channel and single-channel seismic data at different scales (POLONIA et alii, 2011). Pre-stack depth migrated crustal-scale seismic profiles (Fig. 2) have been used to reconstruct the overall geometry of the subduction complex (i.e., depth of the basal detachment, geometry and structural style of different tectonic domains) and location and geometry of major faults. High-resolution multi-channel seismic (MCS) and sub-bottom CHIRP profiles, as well as multibeam data, integrate deep data and constrain the fine structure of the accretionary wedge as well as the activity of individual fault strands.