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Note illustrative redatte per il Foglio geologico n. 245 Viterbo della Carta Geologica d'Italia alla scala 1:50.000. 273 pp.

Note illustrative redatte per il Foglio geologico n. 204 Portomaggiore della Carta Geologica d'Italia alla scala 1:50.000. 344 pp.

In the past two decades, several publications have been presented concerning the recent and active fault geometry, kinematics and geodynamics of the Aegean Region and particularly of the northern sector. Data and results are often contradictory and because of the complexity of the area most hypotheses and models should be considered carefully. The right-lateral movement of the North Anatolia Fault continues into some branches of the North Aegean fault system. There, strike-slip motion along NE–SW trending faults coexists with dip-slip E–W trending faults in the frame of an extensional regime related to N–S crustal stretching. If we take into account the geodynamic environment of the region, several mechanical problems arise. To the east, the Aegean is compressed by the westward convergence of Anatolia, while to the south and west along the Hellenic Arc, a hemiradial compression occurs due to subduction. Although the North Anatolia–North Aegean Trough fault system resembles a restraining bend, the whole area is in fact affected by pure extension and local transtension, along NE–SW trending structures. Accordingly, the major paradox of the area and especially in the western sector (fault termination?) is the occurrence of extension where compression should regionally, or at least locally, predominate.

In the framework of the late Alpide deformation of Greece and of the recent and active extensional tectonism of the Aegean region, the geotectonic evolution of the Thessaly region (central-northern Greece) has been examined, using a quantitative and qualitative structural analysis; stratigraphie, sedimentological, morphotectonic and seismological data. The geometry of the faults, their architecture and the knowledge of the stress pattern are used to explain some aspects of the tectonics and crustal dynamics of Thessaly and the surrounding area. The oldest compressional phases taken into account show a mean ENE-WSW trending direction of shortening and have been defined as late Alpide (early Aquitanian and Langhian). A later (Late Miocene-Pliocene) NE-SW oriented extensional phase has been related to the Hellenic post-orogenic collapse which developed behind the collisional front between the Aegean (Eurasia) and African plates. This phenomenon diachronically migrated from the east (Central Macedonia, Thermaikos Basin) towards the west (Epirus, Albania) where it is still active. As a consequence of this second phase, the area forms a basin and range like structure. The third, and last, phase (Middle Pleistocene-present) is characterized by a N–S direction of extension and affects the entire Aegean region. It generated new E–W trending basins, superimposed on the inherited ones. This gave as a final result, the complex block pattern we can see today. The recent and active right-lateral strike-slip movements along the North Aegean Trough seem to stop in the Sporades Basin and do not affect the uppermost crust of mainland Greece. A further WNW-ESE directed extension observed occasionally in central and northern Greece could be explained by local events or as block-related deformation.

Note illustrative redatte per il Foglio geologico n. 204 Portomaggiore della Carta Geologica d'Italia alla scala 1:50.000. 98 pp.

Note illustrative redatte per il Foglio geologico n. 254 Modigliana della Carta Geologica d'Italia alla scala 1:50.000. 117 pp.

In order to understand the present-day morphological, geographical and environmental patterns of the Larissa Plain, a large amount of historical, archaeological, sedimentologi-cal, stratigraphic, t...