Structural control on badland slope evolution: A case study from the southern Apennines (Italy)

This work fo cuses on a multi-method study of bad lands ex posed in two dif fer ent ar eas of south ern Italy. Re ‐ sults of both ge o mor pho log i cal and struc tural ge o log i cal stud ies are ob tained by com bin ing field and lab o ‐ ra tory analy ses of the bad lands af fect ing Plio-Qua ter nary silty-clays of south ern Italy. Re sults are dis cussed in terms of de for ma tion mech a nisms and bad land for ma tion and evo lu tion. Re sults high light the role played by pre-ex ist ing struc tural het ero geneities, such as high-an gle faults and joints, on both grav i ta tional processes and wa ter cir cu la tion. The afore men tioned het ero geneities are due to spe cific tec tonic stress regimes, and are in ter preted in light of their ge netic na ture, kine mat ics, at ti tude, geom e try, rel a tive tim ing of for ma tion, and aer ial dis tri b u tion. Re sults of this work are sum ma rized in a four-stage con cep tual model char ac ter ized by spe cific ge netic mech a nisms. The con cep tual model in cludes rep re sen ta tive sketches aimed at as sess ing the time-de pen dant evo lu tion of the bad lands. A pro found link be tween struc tural ge ol ‐ ogy and geor mopho log i cal processes is there fore en vi sioned for the bad lands of south ern Italy.