The Epiligurian wedge-top succession in the Enza Valley (Northern Apennines): evidence of a syn-depositional transpressive system

Abstract

We here discuss the Early Oligocene–Middle Miocene evolution of the Epiligurian wedge-top basin system cropping out in the middle Enza Valley (Northern Apennines, Italy). Newly acquired stratigraphic and structural data, backed up by literature review, highlight that during the Rupelian to Serravallian time span, sedimentation was controlled by a left-lateral transpressive system. This system, here named as the Enza Valley Deformation Zone (EVDZ), is SW–NE directed and trends obliquely to the main regional NW–SE-directed structural axis characterizing this part of the Northern Apennines nowadays. The syn-sedimentary activity is testified by: (1) local to regional stratigraphic unconformities, (2) lateral variations of sedimentary facies associations, (3) thickness changes of the stratigraphic units and (4) the occurrence of mass transport deposits. This study suggests that structural lineaments like the EVDZ, transversal to the main regional tectonic trends, may have played a long-term control on the syn-orogenic sedimentation atop the evolving Apennine orogen.