The external Thrust System in Southern Italy: a target for petroleum exploration.

In southern Italy the Apenninic - Maghrebian Orogen developed during the Neogene Afr ica-Europe collision as a regional-scale duplex st ructure. It shows an allochthonous hangingwall, widely overlying a mostly carbonate footw all, consisting of the External Thrust System. This formed since the Tortonian by the detachment of the sedimentary covers of the continental margins of the Africa and Adria plates. In the Southern Apennines the duplex geometry has favoured oil-trapping and fields have been detected in ramp-anticlines of the buried edifi ce. Similar geometries have been inferred in eastern and central Sici ly. The reinterpretation of regional profiles in Sicily based on new field data defines deepseated geometries showing several potential oil traps and the External Thrust System could represent a new target for petroleum exp lorat ion in the region.