Relationships between tectonic/sedimentary burial and exhumation in the evolution of the Apennines by means of clay mineralogy.

In the last thirty years the reconstruction of thermal and burial history of sedimentary successions in the disciplines concerning basin analysis has represented one of the major goals in the research applied to oil exploration over the world. This type of research includes the integration of stratigraphic, structural, petrographic and petrophysic data with thermal evolution parameters obtained from techniques both of the inorganic and organic fraction of the sediment. These researches have led to one-dimensional models and, later on, to more refined two dimensional models that allow us to define the entity of the tectonic and sedimentary load and to determine the exhumation history in chain areas. These methods represent a powerful tool to understand the geological structures and to reconstruct the volumes of rocks that are presently missing in the chain and their removal due to erosion and/or tectonic events. The determination of tectonic and/or sedimentary loads in the Apennines fold-and-thrust-belt by means of clay mineralogy represents a still uncompleted datum. The acquisition of this datum will contribute greatly to the reconstruction of geometries and kinematics of the deformation, to the implications for palaeogeographic reconstructions and, therefore, to the geodynamic models already existing. The aim of this work is to show the potential of clay mineralogy analysis as a tool for understanding the structural framework and the Neogene-Quaternary evolution of the Apennines fold-and-thrust belt and reconstructing the volume of rocks that nowadays are partially or totally eroded. To define the thermal evolution of some sedimentary successions involved in the orogenic wedge, three different areas were chosen as case studies: the Modena-Bologna area the inner zone of the Northern Apennines fold-and-thrust belt; the Lucania area in the axial zone of the Southern Apennines fold-and-thrust belt; the Nebrodi Mts.-Iblei Mts. section in the Eastern Sicily fold-and-thrust belt.