Regional deformation of late Quaternary fluvial sediments in the Apennines foreland basin (Emilia, Italy)

Our research is aimed at estimating the vertical deformation affecting late Quaternary units accumulated into the foreland basin of the Northern Apennines chain. Beneath the study alluvial plain, compressive fault-fold structures are seismically active. We reconstructed the stratigraphic architecture and the depositional evolution of the alluvial deposits, which accumulated in the first 40 m of subsurface, through the last 45,000 years, from before the Last Glacial Maximum to the present. A 58 km-long stratigraphic profile was correlated from the foothill belt near Bologna to the vicinity of the Po River. The analysis of the profile documents subsidence movements through the last 12,000 years, exceeding − 18 m in syncline areas, with subsidence rates of at least 1.5 m/ka. Anticlines areas experienced a much lower subsidence than the syncline ones.