Superimposed Cycles of Composite Marine Terraces: The Example of Cutro Terrace (Calabria, Southern Italy)

摘要

Marine terraces are a valuable archive of information in the reconstruction of uplift and sea-level history of coastal areas, especially when they can be correlated with specific highstands of the eustatic curve. Usually, the correlation is based on the assumption that any morphological terrace is the result of a single sea-level fluctuation. However, if the surface of a terrace is reoccupied during successive transgressions, the result may be a single morphological terrace which has in fact been generated by several superimposed sea-level fluctuations. This study illustrates what type of stratigraphic architecture may be recorded in the deposits of such composite marine terraces, focusing on identification and interpretation of discontinuity surfaces and facies analysis.