Based on the substantial drilling and 2D/3D seismic control achieved during a 60-year-long hydrocarbon exploration history, a detailed reconstruction of the Adria plate foreland shared by the converging Southalpine, Dinaric/Albanian and Apennines chains is presented. Eight depth converted seismic transects joining the opposing belt margins and three time-scaled maps of the evolving tectono-sedimentary framework illustrate the shallow crustal geometry and evolution of the study area. Its Cenozoic compressional architecture results overprinted to and somewhere strongly controlled by the late Permian to early Cretaceous extensional features generated during the Mesozoic rift. The effects of the Cenozoic shortening affected the foreland at different times and with variable directions of tectonic deformation. The Dinaric and Albanian chain compression operated since Paleocene to, respectively, early Miocene and Pleistocene. The western and eastern Southalpine comparts acted on the area since early Oligocene to Messinian and middle Miocene to Pleistocene, respectively, whereas the Apennines system involved it since middle-late Miocene to Pleistocene. The result is a fragmented post-Eocene tectonic evolution of the Adriatic foreland controlled by both the diachronous chain segment activity and their coeval competition. The effect of the opposite chain segment interference was a multiple system of differently evolving foredeeps not exclusively ruled by the chain load at their back. Time and amount of the foreland flexuring were moreover accompanied by formation of transversal positive belts that played the role of transfer zones.

Italy is the most hydrocarbon endowed country of southern Europe, with total discovered reserves (produced þ remaining) of 1840 million barrels of oil and 30 trillion ft 3 of gas. The production of oil amounts to 43.2 million barrels per year, about 75% of which comes from the Val d'Agri Field in the southern Apennines.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract