The Volturno Basin (Southern Italy): insights into the seismo-stratigraphy and structure of the Campania Plain (Southern Italy)

The acquisition of a new multichannel seismic profile in the Volturno Basin, located in the Northern Campania continental shelf of the Southern Tyrrhenian margin of Italy has allowed to construct an interpreted geological section, showing the stratigraphic relationships among the seismic units individuated through the seismo-stratigraphic techniques. The stratigraphic architecture of the Volturno Basin reconstructed through the seismic stratigraphy has shown the occurrence of four main seismo-stratigraphic units, ranging in age from the Pleistocene to the Holocene. They overlie a deformed acoustic basement composed of the Meso-Cenozoic carbonates and the Miocene flysch deposits. The stratigraphic correlation with the deep lithostratigraphic data has been carried out in order to calibrate the interpreted seismic section. The pyroclastic and alluvial deposits well correlate with the seismic units 2b, 3 and 4, representing the Volturno basin filling. The lavas pertaining to the Villa Literno volcanic complex are genetically related with the seismic unit 2a. A complex Late Quaternary sedimentary evolution of this area has been highlighted from the seismic interpretation coupled with the regional geologic correlation, controlled by the relationships between the sea level fluctuations, the tectonic uplift and the sedimentary supply. The tectonic activity has been controlled by the normal faults, whose activity probably lasted between the Late Miocene and the Early Pleistocene, controlling the emplacement of the half-graben and the wedging of the basal sequences.