Late Cretaceous extensional tectonics in Adria: Insights from soft-sediment deformation in the Sorrento Peninsula (southern Apennines)

In this work we document a well-exposed example of Late Cretaceous syn-sedimentary extensional tectonics occurring in carbonates of the Apennine Platform of the southern Apennines. Soft-sediment deformation meso-structures and breccia bodies in the hanging wall of hundred metres long faults record a Late Cretaceous extensional stage along NE-SW striking faults. Such a trend becomes about E-W when Cenozoic vertical axis rotation is removed, being consistent with similar structures previously reported in other domains of the southern portion of Adria. This study contributes to identify a regional Albian to Late Cretaceous extensional pulse in the southern portion of Adria, which is proposed to be responsible for the drowning of several sectors of the continental bridge that connected Africa with Adria until Late Cretaceous times, and for the development of an E-W elongated basin that connected the Ligurian and Ionian seas from Late Cretaceous onwards.