The boundary between Central and Southern Apennines as a laboratory of the transition between accretionary and collisional orogens.

The Matese-Sannio region in Southern Italy represents a crucial sector to analyse the processes that characterized the formation of Apennines and its current structural setting. This area is also of great interest from a seismotectonic point of view, hosting the epicentres of multiple historic destructive earthquakes.

Our study presents part of the results of a multidisciplinary project (MOSAICMO) that integrates multiscale approaches to produce: a regional-scale model of this part of the orogen, a detailed reconstruction of the shallow subsurface of the Quaternary Bojano intramountain basin located in the central part of the study area, and detailed seismological and geophysical analyses.

In this work, we present the 3D subsurface reconstruction of the Matese-Sannio region, exploring the orogen structure to a depth of ca. 10 km by using a dense network of seismic reflection profiles tied with well-logs drilled for hydrocarbon exploration.

We tested the reliability of our geological reconstruction by performing numerical kinematic forward models that provide independent geometrical and temporal constraints to our conceptual model. We then compared our results with previous paleogeographic reconstructions of this sector of the Apennines to shed light on the complex interaction among different paleogeographic domains insisting in a relatively limited region.

Our results provide an updated picture of the present-day structure of the transition between Central and Southern Apennines and represent a reference framework for more detailed applications within the MOSAICMO project.