Uplift history of the Taranto Gulf (southern Italy) from river profile inversion

Quantitative analysis of drainage networks is one of the most used approaches for the investigation of the response of landscape to tectonic forcing and crustal deformation in different geodynamic setting. Recently, river profile inversion has largely been used for the reconstruction of spatial and temporal distribution of uplift in tectonically-active landscapes. The calibration of the erodibility coefficient of the river profile is particularly effective in coastal landscapes, due to the diffuse presence of independent geomorphic markers of the tectonic uplift such as the marine terraces. In this work, we estimated the uplift history of a large sector of the Ionian sector of South-Apennine chain by inverse modelling of river profiles. The landscape is dominated by the presence of several well-preserved orders of marine terraces, which are deeply incised by a trellis-type fluvial net. Several factors such as uniform lithology and well-constrained chronology of several orders of marine terraces provided a favourable setting for the robust application of the modeling of river profiles. The study area includes a large sector of the Ionian coast between Taranto and northern Calabria. southern Italy. From a geological viewpoint, the studied catchments transversally drain the outer zone of the chain to the south and the foredeep-foreland system to the north. Middle Pleistocene deformation in the external sector of the chain has been already demonstrated while the late Quaternary activity of the frontal thrust belt is more debated. Our reconstruction of the spatial and temporal increase of uplift rates to the south can contribute to unravel the recent/active deformation along the buried front of the chain.