Abstract
The Pliocene to Early Pleistocene volcanic activity which generated the basaltic plateau of the Orosei-Dorgali area in Eastern Sardinia led to the disruption of the local hydrographic network by damming some tracts of the fluvial valleys incised in the granite basement. This resulted in the formation of lacustrine basins, whose fine-grained fills were partly interfingered and eventually covered by younger lava flows. In the SW part of the plateau, close to the Galtellì village, a number of unknown depressions, locally named “Paules,” were formed. In order to reconstruct their subsurface structure, two electrical resistivity tomography surveys were carried out across these depressions. The geophysical results, which demonstrate the existence of a disrupted layered system, were used to build a numerical geomechanical model that suggest the depressions originated by local collapses of the basaltic cover due to the compaction of the underlying fine-grained valley fills.
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Acknowledgments
This study has been co-funded by the University of Padova with funding from the “ex Bando Millelire A.A. 2008/2009” and by the Municipality of Dorgali. The authors wish to thank Nicola Michelon for technical support and Bertold Plischke (ISAMGEO Engineering GmbH, Wiesbaden, Germany) for the permission granted to use the proprietary ISAMGEO simulation package for the geomechanical model used in this work. A special thank goes to Maria Antonietta Fancello for her constant helpfulness. The authors are also grateful to Simon Passey for his detailed and accurate review of this manuscript.
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Deiana, R., Dieni, I., Massari, F. et al. A multi-disciplinary study of deformation of the basaltic cover over fine-grained valley fills: a case study from Eastern Sardinia, Italy. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 105, 1245–1255 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-015-1230-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-015-1230-y