Tectonic geomorphology and morphostratigraphy applied to the study of the evolution of fault systems at different scales

In active tectonic areas, fault systems represent one of the main structural elements in shaping landscapes. Thus, the study and dating of landforms and continental deposits affected by tectonic deformation, such as river profiles and knickpoints, paleosurfaces, strath and alluvial terraces, are crucial to assess the activity state of the faults and how they evolved over time. Some features may provide a time-averaged history of deformation (e.g., deformed geomorphic markers), while others have the potential to record a continuous history of deformation (e.g., rock-uplift histories from inversions of river profiles). In this work, we present three case studies where we reconstruct the history and characteristics of fault systems at different scales through a combination of geomorphological and morphostratigraphical analyses. At a regional scale, we present the case study of the North Anatolian Fault (NAF). We reconstructed a spatio-temporal history of rock-uplift by inverting river profiles from 19 different catchments draining the northern part of the Central Pontides, a mountain belt uplifted by the transpression produced by the NAF. We found that uplift migrated westward over time, and combining our results with other published data, we proposed a model describing the age and propagation rates of the NAF from the nucleation point in the Eastern Pontides to the Marmara Sea. The second case study investigates, at a meso-scale, the Quaternary evolution of the northwestern sector of the Apennine Chain (Italy). By combining the rock-uplift history inferred from the inversion of river profiles from 6 catchments draining the Apennine Belt and the morphostratigraphy of the youngest marine units uplifted during the Pliocene in the Po Plain, we inferred the main activity phases of the thrust-top/compressive arc system of the Alessandria Basin and Monferrato Arc, one of the outermost arcs of the northern Apennines. The third case study is a local investigation into identifying the master faults in the Aterno River Valley, one of the most active tectonic intramontane basins in the Central Apennines (Italy). Because the tectonic complexity of the area makes it unsuitable for reconstructing a continuous deformation history by the inversion of river profiles, we applied a different approach by combining the deformation of dated paleosurfaces and fluvial terraces with the present characteristics of the topography (slope, relief, present elevation of deformed paleosurfaces and terraces) and drainage system (channel steepness index, knickpoints). We identified two opposite fault segments (Monte Marine Fault in the Upper Aterno Valley and Bazzano-Monticchio-Fossa Fault in the Lower Aterno Valley), respectively dipping SW and NE, representing the master faults of two different half-grabens.