QUANTIFYING THE VOLCANO-TECTONIC INFLUENCE ON HOLOCENE SEA-LEVEL EVOLUTION. A MULTIPROXY APPROACH ALONG THE MID-TYRRHENIAN COASTS (WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN)

The mid-eastern Tyrrhenian coast is the most complex volcano-tectonic sector in the Mediterranean basin. Here the vertical ground movements (VGMs) due to the interaction between extensive tectonic processes and volcano-tectonic activities have a significant impact of both past and future sea-level evolution. This area represents the youngest basin of the western Mediterranean and it hosts one of the most active volcanic districts, formed by the Campi Flegrei and Vesuvius volcanoes, which are worldwide known for the vertical ground movements accompanying their volcanic activity since the Late Pleistocene. The short-lived alternation of subsidence and uplift has induced great changes in inland areas and abrupt coastal landscape transformations since that time.

The aim of this study was to spatially constrain the magnitude of the subsiding trends which significantly affected this coastal sector during the last millennia.

We then reconstructed the multiple relative sea-level oscillations occurred during the Holocene by developing a comprehensive database of sea-level index and limiting points. This includes newly produced sea-level data from recent marine surveys, which were coupled to previously available data standardized according to the recent international guidelines for RSL studies. This allowed producing a multiproxy dataset composed of depositional, erosional, biological and archaeological sea-level markers, in this very complex Mediterranean area.

The database was developed using a specific web-application composed of two main modules: a database where data are stored, and a server-side software for data management and visualization. This vertical web application has a twofold purpose: favouring the remote interaction of a multidisciplinary research group, and providing a free access resource to the scientific community involved in sea-level studies.

The collected sea-level data were further compared with a number of geophysical predictions in order to disentangle the different components, which influenced the sea-level evolution. Finally, we used GIS techniques to spatially constrain the coastal sectors, which are more vulnerable to the coupled effects of future sea-level rise and VGMs in the next decades.