Late Quaternary sedimentary record of estuarine incised-valley filling and interfluve flooding: The Manfredonia paleovalley system (southern Italy)

Reconstructing Late Quaternary Paleovalley Systems of Italy Through mHVSR: A Tool for Seismic Hazard Assessment in Modern Coastal Lowlands

“…The recent stratigraphic analysis of a 50 m-long core from the Manfredonia area, corroborated by 25 radiocarbon data (Amorosi et al, 2023), enabled the reconstruction of the Candelaro paleovalley for example, the onshore part of the "Manfredonia" incised valley identified by Maselli and Trincardi (2013) (Figure 4). The internal anatomy of two adjacent Apulian paleovalleys, generated by the Cervaro and Carapelle rivers (Figure 1c), respectively, was reconstructed based on sedimentological, stratigraphic, geotechnical, paleontological, and geochemical data through a 17-km-long stratigraphic panel (Amorosi et al, 2023 and Figure 4) oriented roughly parallel to the modern shoreline and transversal to the paleovalley axes.…”

“…This work expands upon the recent, detailed sedimentological characterization of two paleovalley fills in the Adriatic coastal plain: the Pescara paleovalley (Campo et al, 2022) and the Manfredonia paleovalley (Amorosi et al, 2023). The simplified stratigraphic architecture of these two paleovalley systems is summarized in the following sections.…”

“…This is an all‐in‐one, three‐component velocity/acceleration portable instrument expressly designed to digitally record seismic noise. The sampling rate was 128 Hz, and the acquisition length was 16–30 min, chosen based on the supposed substrate depth inferred by previous stratigraphic studies (Amorosi et al., 2023; Campo et al., 2022) and the local level of anthropic noise. A few measurements were repeated at the same sites with a longer acquisition length to ensure stability of the results.…”

“…The paleovalley size is a function of relative sea‐level change, water supply, sediment discharge, and local geology and may differ significantly from valley to valley. Paleovalley thickness, typically tens of meters, may exceed 50 m, while width can vary from 2 km to over 15 km (Amorosi et al., 2016, 2023; Campo et al., 2022; Maselli et al., 2014). Paleovalley fills typically have economic value, as they might contain abundant hydrocarbon and water reserves (Dalrymple et al., 1994; Posamentier & Vail, 1988).…”

“…Buried paleovalley geometries may vary significantly on very short distances (hundreds of m), from the valley flanks (interfluves) to their deepest parts (depocenters) (Amorosi et al., 2023; Campo et al., 2022). Traditional sediment core analysis is a quite expensive exploration tool that can provide detailed lithologic characterization of the valley fill, but no information about its geometry.…”