Morphological and geochemical evidence of neotectonics in the volcanic area of Monti Vulsini (Latium, Italy)

Interdisciplinary research has been carried out to contribute to the definition of the neotectonic arrangement of the eastern area of Monti Vulsini, affected by Upper Pleistocene volcanic activity. Particularly, geochemical and geomorphological inquiries have been performed to identify tectonic elements whose recent activity could be related to the volcanic history of this area. T The morphological field evidence of tectonics, as well as the analysis of azimuthal distribution of stream channels and the statistical analysis of the amplitude of relief (A,), revealed the eastern Monti Vulsini volcanic area to be controlled by different tectonic alignments. At the same time the geochemical contribution, focused on geostatistical elaboration of soil-gas data, has attempted to process unbiased criteria to define soil-gas anomalies and to infer correlation with their fault-related linear geometry. In particular, rose diagrams of anomalous gas concentration alignments and azimuthal distribution of stream channels, performed for each hierarchical order, were compared to obtain information about the location and orientation of tectonic elements, as well as about the possible reconstruction of their activity in recent times, by means of relative chronology. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.