SUBDUCTION AND MANTLE DYNAMICS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

More than century of geological and geophysical studies have been devoted to understand the geodynamic evolution of the Mediterranean and of the Alpine belt, starting from the discovery of the large scale overthrust and of the presence of oceanic rocks in the Alps. During the last decades several geophysics and geological projects have been carried out and different models have been proposed to explain the evolution of the Alpine belt and of its surrounding deep oceanic-floored basins.

Here, we present the Mediterranean as a test site to understand the linkage between surface tectonic structures and the style of mantle convection, combining different sets of data, such as past and present-day plate kinematics, tectonic evolution, mantle tomography to unravel the style and the history of subduction. The model validity is tested using experimental and numerical simulation. The result of this analysis allows a complete backtrack of the mantle flow field during the last 30 Ma, giving insight into fundamental process such as the style of mantle convection, including the interaction of the slab with the 660 km discontinuity, the disruption of the slab, microplate formation and dynamic topography signal.