Polyphase Tectonics through subsidence analysis: the Oligo-Miocene Venetian and Friuli Basin, north-east Italy

Subsidence and provenance analysis has been used as a tool to quantify and discriminate the role of tectonics and eustasy in the Veneto and Friuli Basin, north-east Italy, using 17 sections distributed along east–west-trending outcrops of Oligo-Miocene deposits. The basin can be considered a two-phase foreland; first, during late Oligocene to Langhian with respect to the NW–SE-trending Dinaric Chain, and then with respect to the south-vergent South-Alpine Chain.The clastic succession is up to 4000 m thick, and was deposited in a generally shallow-marine to nonmarine environment. Subsidence diagrams reconstructed for each section and E–W subsidence profiles indicate a compound effect of the Dinaric and South-Alpine tectonics as well as interference with eustatic sea-level changes.During the Oligocene and the early Miocene, the cycles recognized within the basin approximately match sea-level curves, the inferred cyclicity being primarily eustatic. However, the westward migration of the sedimentary depocentre during the same interval of time indicates activity of Dinaric thrusts.From Burdigalian (20 Ma) onwards, differential subsidence between the northernmost and the southernmost sectors of the basin suggests initiation of South-Alpine uplift in the frontal parts. During Tortonian and early Messinian uplift, erosion and southward migration of the thrust system was associated with the progressive closure of the basin from open marine influence. During Messinian sea-level drop, up to 2500 m of alluvial sediments were deposited at the same time as the South-Alpine thrusts were emerging, as confirmed by progressive angular unconformities within the continental succession.