Structural and petrological field mapping techniques in regions characterized by plastic to brittle transition during exhumation process: an example from the Aspromonte Massif nappe-like edifice

Geological mapping of nappe-like edifice composed by metamorphic basement slices overlying by suturingsedimentary covers requires the possibility to handle multi-disciplinary and multi-scale geological dataset from theoutcrop- up to the thin section-scale and beyond in order to permit the interaction between meso-structural data withmicro-analytical investigations. In this complex geological framework, characterized by rocks which recorded ageological exhumation history traced by a plastic to brittle transition, it is necessary to produce field-related geologicaldata enabling to manage pluri-geothematic interactive data set, possibly organized within an interoperable datamanagement infrastructure.In this view, in the last years, the geo-science community begin to be increasingly concerned to a geologicalinformation modeling based on a structured framework of the geological domain on continuity and compatibilitybetween output generated by different systems, implementing a real interoperability among heterogeneous softwareplatforms. This have been widely developed by IUGS (International Union of Geological Sciences) through theGeoSciML (Geoscience Markup Language) (Laxton, 2010).In this context, this work purposes an example of field-mapping of an area located in the eastern sector of theAspromonte Massif (southern Calabria), characterized by an Alpine-Apennine nappe-like structure consisting of threestacked crystalline basement units (i.e. Madonna di Polsi, Aspromonte-Peloritani and Stilo Units), partly sutured bysyn- to late-tectonic deposition of the silicic-clatic terrigeneous sequence of the Stilo-Capo D’Orlando Formation(SCOF), covered in turn by the back-thrusting (Tripodi et al., 2013) or re-sedimentation (Cavazza and Barone, 2010), ofa clay rich mélange (i.e. the Varicolori Clays).The proposed database infrastructure is essentially based on the last INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Informationin the European Community) guidelines in terms of syntax and logical relations, integrated by the FGDC-GDS (FederalGeographic Data Committee - Geological Data Subcommittee) (http://www.fgdc.gov) map symbols, everything toensure as far as possible, the interoperability of geospatial data, useful to develop new platforms of data sharing.