Geology of the Southern Apennines

This paper aims to provide a concise description of the geology of the Southern Apennines especially useful for readers having scarce familiarity with this complex region. The text is divided into four parts: - Brief introduction to the geology of the Southern Apennines in which the general outlines of the thrust belt-foredeep-foreland system are given together with a general description of the internal structural architecture of the mountain chain; - Summary of the paleogeographic models existing in the geological literature and discussion of the basic criteria used for the palinspastic restoration of the Apennine depositional domains proposed in this paper; - Synthetic description of the Apennine tectonic units and of the Neogene-Quaternary thrust-sheet-top deposits cropping out in the study area and discussion on the available structural and stratigraphic information constraining the time-space reconstruction of the tectonic deformation; - Short illustration of the principal steps describing the kinematic evolution of the thrust belt-foredeep-foreland system from the early Miocene to the end of the early Pleistocene. The enclosed simplified geological-structural map will help the reader to keep in mind without difficulties the key points of the regional framework. Selected references on the single tectonic unit or thrust-sheet-top deposit have been provided at the end of each paragraph, with the aim of assisting the reader who wanted to tackle the Apennine geological problems by navigating through the numerous controversies and internal inconsistencies of the current literature