Structural setting of the Apennine-Maghrebian thrust belt

Abstract

The Apennine-Maghrebian fold-and-thrust belt developed from the latest Cretaceous to Early Pleistocene at the subduction-collisional boundary between the European and the westward-subducted Ionian and Adria plates. Large parts of the Mesozoic oceanic lithosphere were subducted during an Alpine phase from the Late Cretaceous to Middle Eocene. The chain developed through the deformation of major paleogeographic internal domains (tectono-sedimentary sequences of the Ligurian-Piedmont Ocean) and external domains (sedimentary sequences derived from the deformation of the continental Adria-African passive margin). The continuity of the Apennine chain is abruptly interrupted in the Calabrian Arc by the extensive klippe of Kabylo-Calabrian crystalline exotic terranes, derived from deformation of the European passive margin.