Pleistocene terracing phases in the metropolitan area of Bari - AAR dating and deduced uplift rates of the Apulian Foreland

Abstract

We performed detailed geological and geomorphological analyses on a series of marine terraces located around the city of Bari (southern Italy). Absolute dating was obtained by applying amino acid racemisation (AAR) to ostracod valves taken from deposits lying on marine terraces. The combination of literature data, field geological surveys, digital terrain model analysis, and absolute dating allowed us to recognise and map: i) four terrace surfaces bordered by four inner edges which date to MIS 7.5, 7.3, 7.1, and 5.5; and ii) three terraced deposits, which date to MIS 7.5, 7.1, and 5.5. These new data represent the first dated terraced deposits (older than MIS 5) of the coastal stretch of the Apulian foreland between Trani and Taranto. Using inner edges of the terraces as palaeo sea level markers, we calculate the mean uplift rates that characterised this portion of the Apulian foreland from MIS 7.5, 7.3, 7.1, 5.5 to the present day; these rates are 0.28, 0.255, 0.15 and 0.01 mm/y, respectively. These new dated Pleistocene terraced deposits allow to refine the knowledge on the chronology, the spatial extension and rate of the uplift and, in general, on the Pleistocene geodynamics of the Apulian foreland.

The Impact of Future Sea-Level Rise on Low-Lying Subsiding Coasts: A Case Study of Tavoliere Delle Puglie (Southern Italy)

“…The cores sampled in the coastal plain showed the presence of the bioherm of Cladocora Caespitosa up to a depth of −22 m below the sea level [32]. The faunal assemblage of the bioherm allowed us to hypothesize that the sea bottom was at a depth of about 2 m. As the bioherm was referred to as MIS 5.5, and, in that period, the sea level was at +6 ± 3 m [16,74,75], the estimated subsidence was about −26 ± 3 m, with a rate between −0.23 and −0.11 mm/yr and a mean value of −0.21 mm/yr [32,44]. On the other hand, the archaeological markers of the Salapia Roman pier structure (currently located between −5 m and −10 m below the sea level, close to Torre Pietra) indicate that the subsidence was also significant during the Holocene [76].…”

Coastal Quarries as Relative Sea-Level Markers: A Methodological Approach Applied in the Apulia Region (Southern Italy)

“…The lithology of the study area is given by the Calcarenite di Gravina Formation (Lower Pleistocene) in transgression on the Cretaceous limestones [63,64], which are characterized by joints and fractured surfaces and by several coastal springs that drain the underground water along with preferential flows in the calcarenite [65]. The morphology of the area consists of a series of marine terraces formed during the Last Interglacial period when the sea level was about 7 m higher than the present level [62,[66][67][68]. These terraces The structural features of the Apulia region are located on the Adria Plate and are constituted by a main structural system of NW-SE oriented normal faults [62,[69][70][71].…”