Active Extension in a Foreland Trapped Between Two Contractional Chains: The South Apulia Fault System (SAFS)

The response of continental forelands to subduction and collision is a widely investigated topic in geodynamics. The deformation occurring within a foreland shared by two opposite-verging chains, however, is uncommon and poorly understood. The Apulia Swell in the southern end of the Adria microplate (Africa-Europe plate boundary, central Mediterranean Sea) represents one of these cases, as it is the common foreland of the SW verging Albanides-Hellenides and the NE verging Southern Apennines merging into the SSE verging Calabrian Arc. We investigated the internal deformation of the Apulia Swell using multiscale geophysical data: multichannel seismic profiles recording up to 12-s two-way time (TWT) for a consistent image of the upper crust; high-resolution multichannel seismic profiles, high-resolution multibeam bathymetry, and CHIRP profiles acquired by R/V OGS Explora to constrain the Quaternary geological record. The results of our analyses characterize the geometry of the South Apulia Fault System (SAFS), a 100-km-long and 12-km-wide structure attesting an extensional (and possibly transtensional) response of the foreland to the two contractional fronts. The SAFS consists of two NW-SE right-stepping master faults and several secondary structures. The SAFS activity spans from the Early Pleistocene through the Holocene, as testified by the bathymetric and high-resolution seismic data, with long-term slip rates in the range of 0.2–0.4 mm/yr. Considering the position within an area with few or none other active faults in the surroundings, the dimension, and the activity rates, the SAFS can be a candidate causative fault of the 20 February 1743, M 6.7, earthquake