Coastal structure, sea-level changes and vertical motion of the land in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The Mediterranean basin is an important area of the Earth for studying the interplay between geodynamic processes and landscape evolution affected by tectonic, glacio-hydro-iso- static and eustatic factors. We focus on determining vertical deformations and relative sea-level change of the coastal zone utilizing geological, archaeological, historical and instrumental data, and modelling. For deformation determinations on recent decadal to centennial time scales, seis- mic strain analysis based on about 6000 focal mechanisms, surface deformation analysis based on some 850 continuous GPS stations, and 57 tide gauge records were used. Utilizing data from tectonically stable areas, reference surfaces were established to separate tectonic and climate (eustatic) signals throughout the basin for the last 20 000 years. Predominant Holocene subsidence (west coast of Italy, northern Adriatic sea, most of Greece and Turkey are areas at risk of flooding owing to relative sea-level rise), uplift (local areas in southwestern Italy and southern Greece) or stability (northwestern and central western Mediterranean and Levant area) were determined. Superimposed on the long trends, the coasts are also impacted by sudden extreme events such as recurring large storms and numerous, but unpredictable tsunamis caused by the high seismicity of parts of the basin

Flooding scenario for four Italian coastal plains using three relative sea level rise models

“…Instrumental and observational data show that global sea level is rising as a result on the sum of eustatic, glacio-hydro-isostatic, and tectonic (including volcanic) signals (Lambeck & Purcell, 2005). Therefore, scenarios of land flooding should take into account the role of vertical land movements (VLMs) (Anzidei et al, 2014;Anzidei et al 2017;Aucelli et al, 2016;Lambeck et al, 2011;Rovere et al, 2012;Wöppelmann & Marcos, 2012), such as natural or anthropogenic land subsidence.…”

Caves Biodiversity in the Marine Area of Riviera d'Ulisse Regional Park, Italy: Grotta del Maresciallo Overview

“…See, for example the component of the rocky bottoms that are carbonate rocks, as reported in other marine caves in many coastal marine areas of the Mediterranean environment for karstic processes [8] and submerged little stalactites and stalagmites, which are known to form only in air. The development of specialized cave diving techniques and equipment used has provided a mean to gain access to the submerged cave as our small cave examined.…”

“…Still there can be a biological pollution also, due to new thermophilic and/or tropical species [5][6][7]. For these reasons a continuous monitoring action is necessary to provide information about the costal structure, sea level changes, spatio-temporal species in the caves performed by a census made and supported by professional divers and molecular techniques [8][9][10][11][12]. In this optic the census and the identification represent an important step to establish the abundance/rarity degree of the marinea species [13,14], as well to detect possibly cryptic species and even to describe new species [15][16][17].…”

General considerations and highlights of low-lying coastal zones: passive continental margins from the poles to the tropics

“…The coasts of the complex Mediterranean Sea basin are affected by eustatic sea-level changes but also by hydro-isostatic and neoctectonic factors. Anzidei et al (2014) analyse with geophysical, geomorphologic and archaeological methods the variation in sea-level related to all these factors. In the same basin there are also tectonically passive coasts and along one of these in eastern Spain a very long core is studied by Torres et al (2013), illustrating the environmental variations from mid-Pleistocene to the Recent.…”

“…To restrict the otherwise huge comparative task, the focus has been placed on Atlantic shores of the Americas. As contrast, a few outlier papers deal with coastal dunes of temperate areas of South Africa and South Australia, evaporite -carbonate settings (Billeaud et al 2013) and the effect of Late Pleistocene to Present vertical movements on Mediterranean Sea coasts (Anzidei et al 2014). Twenty-three papers have been collated that deal with global and regional reviews of coastal zones and reports of novel research in specific areas (Fig.…”