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A census of 83 Infralittoral Prograding Wedges (IPWs) was carried out in the Central-Eastern Tyrrhenian Sea, to learn more about their morpho-bathymetric variability and test their reliability as environmental indicators of current sea level. With this aim, a database recording for each wedge the main morphometric indices, the effective fetch and the significant height of the storm waves– here used as proxies for sea state forcing to which they are exposed- and the ground elevation in the backshore - here used as a numerical descriptor of coastal morphology and energy of the relief- was realized (Campania Region IPWs Database). The statistical analysis on the entire IPWs dataset explored the relationship between the environmental and morphometric variables while the Principal Component Analysis grouped the variables into two clusters, governed by sea state forcing and energy of relief in the backshore, respectively. The multi-regression analysis highlighted a significant correlation of IPWs depth with effective fetch and extreme significant wave height and a moderate correlation with the ground elevation in the backshore. The outcomes that emerged from the observational law on present-day IPWs were then applied to relict IPWs, currently lying on the continental shelf and at the shelf margin, with the aim of establishing their original depth of formation. This procedure aims to solve the non-trivial issue, namely that concerning the reliability of paleo-IPWs as proxies for past sea levels. Thus, a simplified equation based only on the use of geographical variables is proposed here to roughly establish the original depth (with errors of few metres) of paleo-IPWs, whose geographical exposure is known and the effective fetch computable. Although the applicability of this method suffers from spatial and temporal restrictions, due to the girth of the original dataset, it provides a first analytical procedure for gauging the original depth of formation of paleo-IPWs which, over the last decade, have been increasingly used as environmental indicators of past sea levels. This study highlights the relationship between the depth of these sedimentary coastal bodies and sea storm wave climate at a regional scale and provides clues for the use of their past counterparts as morphological proxies of past sea level stands. Further developments of this study would use a wider dataset so as to extend the observational law on present-day IPWs to a Mediterranean scale and strengthen the applicability of the method to a spatially broader set of paleo-IPWs.

This article reports on the dataset gathered following the census of 83 present-day Infralittoral Prograding Wedges (IPWs), surveyed on the inner continental shelf of the Central-Eastern Tyrrhenian Sea. The purpose of the census was to explore their bathymetric range and assess the observational laws governing this variability. The ensued dataset (Campania Region IPW Dataset, CRID) includes geographic, topographic and morpho-bathymetric indices, descriptive of each IPW and more, the exposure of each IPW to wave forcing (Geographical fetch, Effective fetch and extreme significant wave height, HS). In this work, histograms contribute to describe all the variables and highlight the dominant features of each IPW. Location maps univocally links the geographic position of each IPW to the appropriate attribute record in the dataset. Further, thematic maps illustrate eight wave fields obtained by offshore-to-nearshore transformation by as many sea states scenarios with 200-year return period. Such wave fields are used as sources for significant wave height representing wave conditions over each IPW. This dataset could be implemented with new measures at a broader scale, by following analogue procedures for measurements, to enlarge the observational scale on IPWs and improve the numerical models which might eventually derive by the analysis of this dataset.

A set of high resolution Subbottom Chirp, Sparker profiles and swath bathymetric data have been acquired in the frame of PONa3_00363 I AMICA project immediately offshore the Volturno river mouth (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea). The palaeo-topography of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) erosional surface was mapped by the interpolation of seismically-detected horizons, allowing a false-3D reconstruction. The morphology of the LGM revealed the presence of soft and distributed fault linkages, defined by a small-scaled accommodation zone with an interbasinal relative high, revealing an E-W trending direction. The observed set of oppositely dipping faults, NNW and an ENE directed, locally controlled the deposition of paralic transgressive bodies, as testified by their wedging external geometry, with a deformation presumably linked to the Phlegrean Field caldera collapse, following Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT) eruption and aged 15 ka. The relevant thickness of the Transgressive Sistem Tract (TST) itself, if compared to adjacent shelf areas, testifies an increased sediment yield and intense reworking in coastal areas, probably driven by high volcanoclastic supply during volcanic paroxysm, almost coeval to the post-glacial sea-level transgression. Fluid escape features, interpreted as intrusion related structures, suggested the occurrence of an E-W striking fluid front located at the shelf edge and the presence of an hydrothermal vent.

Three piston cores (C1067, C1201, C1202) from the continental shelf and slope in the Salerno Gulf and Cilento offshore preserve small-scale, long-term change of Earth's past magnetic field (Palaeo Secular Variation) between about 115 ka B.P and the present. The cores overlap as follows: C1201 spans the most recent 25 ka and overlaps C1067 and C1202, which respectively cover much of the last approximately 115 ka B.P. Cores C1067 and C1202 lack the record from about 20 ka to about 11 ka B.P., an absence that is due to slope erosional processes. The palaeomagnetic field behaviour, when correlated to curves of global relative palaeomagnetic field intensity and dated records of PSV for western Europe and Great Britain, coupled with discreet tephrochronology and geochronology dating (C14), allow us to compile a chronology for the combined cores. The resulting chronology for the first most recent 44 ka has application for placing time constraints on the marine geology and stratigraphy of the margin of the eastern Tyrrhenian Sea. So far, catastrophic events such as large-scale submarine slumps, volcanic eruptions, turbidite deposition, and abrupt changes in sedimentation rate have been documented. In particular, the changes in sedimentation rate seem to be linked to global rapid sea-level pulses and climatic events that induced concurrent reduction and/or abundance in the sediment supply from the adjacent coastal margin.

Dati di paleovariazioni secolari (PSV) del campo geomagnetico sono stati ottenuti negli ultimi 25.000 anni da diverse carote recuperate nel Golfo di Salerno (Mar Tirreno orientale). Le curve composte di PSV, sono comparate con le " PSV Master Curves" britanniche e francesi. La comparazione fornisce uno strumento cronologico per determinare un trend di accrescimento del tasso di sedimentazione nell'Olocene superiore e di variazione ad intervalli di circa 1000 anni nell' Olocene medio della piattaforma. Inoltre durante i due principali episodi caldi del Mediterraneo a circa 3.3 e tra 6-9 ka sia la piattaforma che la scarpata superiore registrano un aumento con successiva diminuzione del tasso di sedimentazione, mentre ulteriori diminuzioni si registrano, in scarpata superiore, durante l'ultimo picco Glaciale (LGM) e l'interstadio Bølling-Allerød, suggerendo cosi un' influenza climatica sui processi di accumulo dei sedimenti del margine del Golfo di Salerno.

Serum gastrin concentrations were measured in 75 subjects of blood group O and in 75 subjects of other blood groups. Gastrinaemia both basally and following stimulation by glycine drink or by insulin hypoglycaemia did not show any statistically significant differenc in blood group O people as compared to subjects of other blood groups. It is concluded that the claimed relationship between blood group O and parietal cell hyperplasia cannot be considered as secondary to a relationship between blood group O and increased gastrin-producting G cell mass.