Oblique rifting in Salina, Lipari and Vulcano islands (Aeolian islands, southern Italy)

Abstract

ABSTRACT A structural analysis carried out on the volcanic products of the islands of Salina, Lipari and Vulcano (Aeolian archipelago) points out that the large‐scale tectonic setting is dominated by NW‐SE trending right‐lateral extensional strike‐slip faults and by N‐S to NE‐SW trending normal faults and fractures. This fault pattern generates pull‐apart type structures, developing between different right‐hand overlapping fault segments and a characteristic extensional imbricate fan geometry at the tip of the major strike‐slip faults. All the structures, representing the surface expression of an active crustal discontinuity which controls the evolutionary history of the magmatism of the three islands, are kinematically compatible with a N100°E extension related to a rifting process affecting southern Italy.