Structural features of the Trabia-Termini Imerese mountain belt (NW-Sicily)

The present paper considers the geology of the mountain range around Termini Imerese in northwestern Sicily. Much strati­graphical and structural work has been carried out in this area of the Apenninic-Maghrebian chain in the past, which has resulted in a general description of its geological evolution and, most of all, a characterization of the sedimentary sequences. During the past decade the framework of the neotectonic evolution of both eastern and western Sicily has evolved notably thanks to several syntheti­zing publications on a regional scale, which are based on a vast amount of geological data derived from the interpretation of sei­srnic lines recorded on land and in the Tyrrhenian offshore. These works have revealed new structural elements and opened the way toward a modem vision of the geology of Sicily.

Here the importance of this sector in the framework of the Apenninic-Maghrebian orogen is highlighted for the presence of deep structural alignments that testify the involvement of African crust in the tectogenesis. This determines the structuralization of a deep thrust system in a context of thin-skinned tectonics until the Early Pliocene and thick-skinned tectonics since the Late Pliocene­Early Pleistocene.

This work has been carried out making a throrough analy­sis of the structural associations that has permitted to identify some new elements such as the intense deformation related to the Messinian-Early Pliocene transpressive tectonics and the correla­tion of this event with the depositional sequences that are present in the basinal areas and thus allows to understand the complicated relationship between tectonics and sedimentation.