Extrusion tectonics in the central Mediterranean area

The post-Tortonian deformation pattern in the Central Mediterranean is explained as a result of the Africa-Eurasia convergence along roughly a SSW-NNE direction. This convergence was first accommodated by a considerable reduction of the Adriatic foreland, through the consumption of its eastern and western margins, and then by lateral expulsion of crustal wedges, accompanied by crustal thickening, in the zone between the Adriatic and African forelands. The lateral expulsion of the Calabria and Sicily blocks, towards the E/SE and NW respectively, was possible due to the presence of poorly constrained lateral boundaries corresponding to the thinned Ionian foreland and to the zone of crustal stretching in the Tyrrhenian basin. The proposed interpretation allows physically plausible explanations of a considerable amount of geological, geophysical and volcanological evidence in the framework of relatively simple and coherent tectonic mechanisms