In the central Apennines, interacting siliciclastic and carbonate marine clastic wedges filled the foreland basin system during the late Miocene. Conjunction of collisional thrust tectonics and prethrusting normal faults generated a complex foredeep with intrabasinal structural highs that represented additional source areas to the basin. Detrital modes of the late Miocene central Apennines orogenic system range in composition from intrabasinal carbonate to quartzofeldspatholithic and calclithite arenites. The external zone of the foredeep is characterized by hemipelagic deposits, called the Orbulina Marl. Their arenite beds are composed by intrabasinal carbonate, with dominant bioclasts and minor intraclasts, and glauconite derived from an active shallow-marine carbonate source. These hemipelagic deposits are partly coeval with and partly overlain by siliciclastic turbidites of the Frosinone and the Argilloso-Arenacea Formations, and they represent deposition within local foredeep depocenters. Siliciclastic turbidite sandstones are quartzofeldspatholithic, which documents provenances from metamorphic, plutonic, ophiolitic, and sedimentary rocks. Carbonate intrabasinal structural highs were the main source for carbonate breccias, intrabasinal arenites, and calclithites of the Brecce della Renga Formation, the deposits of which are locally interbedded with the coeval siliciclastic turbidite sandstones. Evolution of late Miocene sandstone detrital modes reflected the changing nature of the central Apennines thrust belt through time and the complex architecture of the foreland basin system; it records the history of accretion, deformation of the foredeep, and progressive areal reduction of carbonate-producing areas along with the sedimentary and structural evolution of local intrabasinal highs.

This work represents an integrated analysis of weathering landforms, including minor landform morphologies and soil profiles developed on granitoid terrains of the Sila Massif uplands (Calabria, southern Italy). The results of our analysis indicate that cryoclastic and thermoclastic processes, along with chemical weathering, are the main factors controlling rock degradation. Microscale features observed in primary minerals and parent rock fabrics, such as structural discontinuities, cleavage planes, fracturing patterns, and variations in chemical composition, play important roles in triggering weathering and, given sufficient time, progressively lead to grussification and soil development. Exfoliation, hydration, and splitting apart of biotite, as well as hydrolysis and etching of plagioclase and K-feldspar, appear to be prominent factors in the breakdown of bedrock. Whereas time controls the degree of development of the main weathering features and climate infiuences type and intensity of the dominant processes, relief strongly influences the development and preservation/removal of the regolith/soil cover. Geomorphological evidence of severe surface erosion is quite good, especially along steep slopes where weathering products are quickly removed, although on the highest, dissected paleosurfaces (the oldest paleolandscape remnants in the Sila Massif), wide boulder fields represent relics of past, deep spheroidal weathering that have been exhumed by intense erosion. Erosive, depositional, or reworking phenomena, often enhanced by human activity, are well recorded by macro- and micromorphological features of soils, which show simple, poorly differentiated, rejuvenated profiles, buried or truncated horizons, abundant coarse-grained primary minerals or rock fragments, and pedorelicts. The soil clay mineralogy, characterized by illite, chlorite, and vermiculite, and the dominance of coarse textures confirm a young pedogenetic stage of evolution, although highly weathered sand grains (quartz included) occur in rarely preserved mature paleosols. This interpretation is also consistent with the compositional immaturity of fiuvial sands, which have undergone low to moderate transport.