Seismo-stratigraphic data of wave-cut marine terraces in the morpho-structural high of the Licosa Cape (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy)

Some seismo-stratigraphic evidence on the occurrence of wave-cut marine terraces in the morpho-structural high of the Licosa Cape (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea) based on a densely spaced grid of high-resolution seismic reflection profiles (Sub-bottom Chirp) is herein presented. This evidence is represented by several orders of terraced surfaces disposed at several water depths below the sea level and incised in the rocky acoustic basement, widely cropping out in the seaward prolongation of the morpho-structural high of the Licosa Cape (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea). The terraced surfaces have been tentatively correlated with the recent curves of the isotopic stratigraphy, so providing indirect attribution and dating of the marine terraced surfaces. The geologic interpretation of seismic reflection profiles located in the morpho-structural high of the Licosa Cape has evidenced the occurrence of the acoustic basement, cropping out at the sea bottom nearshore and dipping seawards below the Quaternary marine deposits, which form the recent sedimentary cover. Several local unconformities overlie coarse-grained deposits, filling intra-basin depressions or palaeo-channels located at the top of the acoustic basement. A polycyclic nature of these unconformities has been inferred, suggesting that the acoustic basement was involved in several phases of emersion and erosion, development of terraces, and successive transgression, as a consequence of both Late Quaternary glacio-eustatic sea-level fluctuations and Pleistocene tectonic uplift. Remnants of marine terraced surfaces, located at different water depths, have shown the complex morpho-evolution of the acoustic basement during the Late Quaternary.