Tectonics and stratigraphic architecture of a peri-Tyrrhenian half-graben (Bay of Naples, Italy)

The structural and stratigraphic interpretation of high-resolution seismic reflection profiles permitted the reconstruction of the tectonics and basin architecture of the Bay of Naples from shelf-slope to deep basin areas. The Bay of Naples half-graben experienced extensional tectonics related to the activity of NE-trending normal faults during the Middle Pleistocene. The half-graben displays asymmetric and multiple fault segments linked by relay zones. The basin infill is made up, from old to young, of an unconformity-bounded unit and seven fourth-order depositional sequences. The oldest unit marks incipient fault activity. Increases of the fault slip rates gave rise to the formation of a tectonically-enhanced unconformity on the shelf and coeval thick debris flows in the deep basin. In the shelf-slope area the fourth-order depositional sequences form a trangressive-regressive cycle. The transgressive trend is linked to fault activity, whereas the regressive trend recorded tectonic stability. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.