Karstic landscape evolution of southern Apulia foreland during the Pleistocene

Abstract

The Salento area is a narrow peninsula composed of Cretaceous and Neogenic carbonatic rocks constituting the southernmost part of the emerged Apulian foreland. A karstic landscape shaped on Upper Cretaceous – Lower Pleistocene rocks and covered by Middle Pleistocene terrigenous sediments has been recognized. The evolution of this karstic landscape was most likely promoted by new structural and geomorphological conditions due to the end of Apenninic orogenesis as well as eustatic sea level changes that occurred between the end of the Lower Pleistocene and the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. During this period, in fact, the lowering of regional base level and a tectonic phase marked by NE-SW trending distensive structures occur. Afterwards, the karstic landscape was covered by a Middle Pleistocene marine terrigenous unit and during the last part of the Quaternary, partly re-exhumed and re-activated. The sequence of these phases has been controlled and influenced by structural changes occurred in the region. Presently, the Salento Peninsula landscape shows at its inner and western parts wide karstic surfaces, remnants of the Middle Pleistocene sedimentary cover, and morphostructural ridges. The karstic surfaces are re-exhumed parts of the karstic landscape shaped between the Lower and the Middle Pleistocene. The morphostructural ridges are made of Mesozoic dolomitic-carbonatic units and show a policyclic landscape. Lastly, a number of young marine surfaces bordered by denudative scarps are shaped on the Middle Pleistocene sedimentary cover.