Stratigraphic and Morphological Evidences of the Last Cycle of Relative Sea-Level Change; Some Examples from the Late Pleistocene to Holocene Sedimentary Successions in the Sicilian Offshore

Seismo-stratigraphic studies of the Late Pleistocene to Holocene sedimentary successions, located along the Sicilian continental margin, represent an opportunity to interpret the evolution of a sedimentary basin in terms of interplay among global sea level variability, sedimentary ciclicity, oceanographic changes and tectonic deformation. The focus of this paper is to compare the geological evolution of distinct areas of the submerged extension of the Sicilian chain, from the Western-Northern sector to the Southern one, to define the relations between sedimentation and eustatic sea-level oscillations. These relations are commonly complicated by deformation occurring in both the source (on land) and depositional (on sea) areas. In the Sicilian offshore, the Late Pleistocene to Holocene Q.5.e type 1 depositional sequence records the last fourth - (? 100 kyr) and fifth - order (? 20 kyr) eustatic sea level fluctuations, after the previous highstand of isotope Stage 5e. In the analysed areas, the Q.5.e depositional sequence (80 kyr to 0 b.P. in age) is made up of four systems tracts: the Falling Stage, Lowstand, Trangressive and Highstand Systems Tracts. Despite of the uniformity of quadripartite organization of the Q.5.e depositional sequence, the four Systems Tracts show different sedimentary response to local physiography, tectonics (including subsidence/uplift rates), type and rate of the sediment supply, and oceanographic conditions.