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People | Pete DeCelles
The orogenic belts of the central Mediterranean region are Earth’s type examples of thrust belts developed in response to rapid subduction in the face of relatively slow plate convergence. Unlike the Himalaya and Andes, these mountain belts are low elevation and have extensional hinterlands, and associated foreland basins are filled with extremely thick, often turbiditic sediments. In recent years Italian colleagues and I have been working in the central Apennines, where extension follows rapidly on the heels of thrust-driven uplift as the Apennine “orogenic wave” migrates northeastward in response to subduction of Adriatic lithosphere. We have also worked extensively in Corsica, where Miocene supradetachment basins developed in close association with extensional core complexes that developed as the Alpine orogenic wedge collapsed in latest Oligocene-early Miocene time.
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