18389 - Geology of Italy

Learning outcomes

Make students able to correlate concepts and theoretical processes derived from many fundamental courses to the actual geological structure and dynamic history of Italy within the Mediterranean region

Course contents

I - DOCUMENTS

Stratigraphic successions

Geological and thematic maps

Structural correlations (shields, cratons, foreland; orogenic and tectogenic chains; continental margins, oceanic ridges and plains; crust and mantel; lithosphere and astenosphere)

 

II – OUTLINE OF MEDITERRANEAN REGIONAL GEOLOGY

Chains and basino, crust and lithosphere, magmatism, tomography, deep seismic sounding, magnetism and gravimetry, heath-flow, seimicity, stress field and geodetic data

 

III – REGIONAL GEOLOGY OF ITALY

(a)    Crust and lithosphere, magmatism, tomography, deep seismic sounding, magnetism, gravimetry, temperature and heath-flow, seismicity, stress field and geodetic data

(b)    Stratigraphic successions and structure of the Alps, the Apennines, the Italian seas. The Alps s.s., the Southern Alps, Ligurian-Piedmontese ophiolites, the Calabro-Peloritan terrane, the Alps/Apennine transitional belt and the Po Plain, the Northern Apenninic arc, the Southern Apenninic arc and the Maghrebian-Sicily chain, theSardinia-Corsica hinterland and the Tyrrhenian Sea, the foredeeps and the Adriatic-Ionian-Iblean and Saccente foreland; Late Pleistocene and Holocene neoautochthonous deposits

(c)    Palaeogeographic and palaeotectonic history

The Hercybian cycle

Panafrican crustal consolidation; Caledonian rifts and their magmatism; the carboniferous orogen; late-Hercynian rifts and their magmatism

The Alpine cycle

Permo-Triassic rifts and their magmatism; Pangaea; the Cymmeric orogen; Jrassic rift and Mesozoic drift; Mesozoic magmatism; the pre-Neogenic Europe-pointing orogen; the post-Palaeogenic Adria-Africa- pointing orogene

(d)    evolutionary trends

 

Readings/Bibliography

See Italian version

Teaching methods

Lectures and seminar

Assessment methods

Verbal examination

Teaching tools

Reading geological maps

Office hours

See the website of Giambattista Vai