Marine terraces and extensional faulting in the Taranto Gulf, Bradanic Trough, Southern Italy

The front of the Southern Apennines in the Taranto Gulf is sealed by Pliocene-Pleistocene foredeep deposits, which represent the infill of the Bradanic Trough. The upper portion of the Middle Pleistocene succession consists of marine sands and conglomerates, that previous work considered arranged in several orders of terraces. The local drainage pattern appears controlled by priminent geomorphic lineaments. Some of these structures coincide with normal faults with vertical offsets of ca. 10 m each. Their trend defines an arcuate pattern that mimics the present coastline. Filedwork shows that all the terraced deposits belong to a single sedimentary body displaced by normal faults. The terraced deposits are related to an event of beach progradation, of Middle Pleistocene age, documented in other areas of the Italian peninsula. The recognition of normal faults offsetting a single terrace unit outline an intimate relationship between the arcuate trend of the mapped fault set and the present coaastline pattern. Normal fault development can be related to large-scalòe gravitational processes developed after the general tilting towards SE of the Bradanic Trough.