Assetto geologico della Montagnola di Frosolone

This paper is the final result of a geological-structural survey at 1:10.000 scale in a wide area of the Molise region. The surveyed area comprises the NW thrust front of the Matese Mountain and the entire Montagnola di Frosolone, characterised by the transitional sequences of the Frosolone Unit, the innermost unit among the Molisan Units. The enclosed geological map (scale 1:30.000) includes several brand new items with respect to the official cartography. Geometrically correct and potentially retrodeformable geological cross-sections show the structural features of this region. Thrust tectonics leads the general geological setting of the region with overthrusts surfaces, reverse faults, folds, s-c tectonites and reverse kink-bands. Strike-slip tectonics and WNW-ESE extensional tectonics, following compressional features, fit the tectonic reconstruction, playing only a secondary role with respect to Molisan Apennine mountain building. The main geometries are made up by several folds with strongly steep and overturned bedding nearby the thrust leading edge. Those folds show generally small amplitude and high frequency, involving the whole multilayer. The Frosolone Unit shows sedimentological and lithological features of a typical transitional environment, where a continuous sedimentation of detritic limestones took place since Dogger to Middle Miocene. Our data partially confirmed interpretative theories of other workers, highlighting the general complexity of the entire structure. Tectonic setting is characterised by several folds with structural axis having different orientation. Dispersion can be due to differential rotation of early stage structures, connected with the developing of an important out-of-sequence thrust, the Simbruini-Venafro-Frosolone thrust. An important element highlighted in this paper is the presence of two thrusts along the south-eastern margin of the Montagnola di Frosolone. These new elements mark the tectonic contact between the preterrigenous sequence and the silicoclastic deposits which border the structure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reaxys Database Information|