NORTHERN APENNINES AS A COLLISIONAL OROGEN

Within the overall evolution of the Alpine System, the Northern Apennines have remained one of the most perplexing and least understood of mountain belts. It is also clear that the Northern Apennines is a critical area in which to test ideas relating mountain building to processes of vertical uplift and gravity sliding or to horizontal compression resulting from convergent plate motions. This paper introduces the results of new structural research in Northern Apennines basement terranes which strongly support the idea that orogeny is dominantly due to processes related to plate tectonics.