The Ionian basin is the remnant of a wide sedimentary basin floored by oceanic crust. It was originated after the Permo-Triassic lithospheric rifting between the Africa megaplate and the Adria continental block [Finetti, 1982; Stampfli et al., 2001].
The rifting phase produced deep grabens on a thinned continental crust; successively, the oceanic opening of Ionian basin was accompanied by the NE migration of the Adria plate and its counterclockwise rotation.
During the Paleogene-Miocene time the north-western Ionian crust has been subducted below the Southern Apennine Maghrebian orogenic belt. After the collision between the orogenic belt and the continental Adria and Pelagian forelands during the Upper Miocene, only the Calabrian Arc is still migrating and overthrusting the oceanic foreland with a SSE direction [Del Ben et al., 2008]. To the East, the Ionian basin is subducting under the Hellenic Arc, cut by the Cephalonia active right-lateral strike-slip fault system (Fig. X.2) and the Mediterranen Ridge accretionary wedge. The southern margin of the Ionian basin is a rifted margin formed by the transition to the Africa plate continental crust in the Sirte Gulf.
The seismic facies of the MSC unconformities and units are described.
