The Coastal Depositional Systems along the Campania continental margin (Italy, Southern Tyrrhenian sea) since the Late Pleistocene: New Information Gathered in the Frame of the CARG Project

Extensive high-resolution mapping of the continental margin off the southern Campania region (eastern Tyrrhenian Sea) has revealed significant morphological and geological features which allowed us to outline the gradual modification of the coastal domains since the Late Pleistocene. Swath bathymetry, acoustic images of the seafloor, seismic acquisition, core and bottom samples were used to implement a large database. Shore bodies ranging in age from pre- to post- last-glacial times have been identified in the uppermost 100 ms of the seismic stratigraphic record off the Sele and Bussento river mouths. The oldest bodies formed during the seaward retreat of the shoreline during the Late Pleistocene sea level drop. The peak of the retreat accounts for the growth of a shelf-margin, in the Salerno and Policastro Bays, and a mid-shelf, off Cilento, littoral body, at least 100 km long, during the last maximum lowstand phase. At that time, the River Sele flowed directly on the upper slope and formed a channel drainage system, still preserved between a depth of 180 and 500 m, due to density flows that have transferred sediment from the coastal area directly into the Salerno Valley, an intraslope basin of the Eastern Tyrrhenian Margin. The postglacial sea level rise caused the fast drowning of the shelf and a partial preservation of the transgressive deposits. However a prograding wedge 1.5 km long and about 10 ms thick, which lies above the transgressive surface (90/60 m below the present day sea level), could represent a trace of the Younger Dryas climatic event. The rapid shore progradation during the 12 ky B.P. cold event testifies the sensitivity of the Sele coastal system even to minor climatic oscillations.