Geochemical Investigation on Marine Sediments and Mud Volcanoes

The study area is located along the Paola Ridge, a NNW-SSE 60-km-long anticline that confines the Paola Basin to the west (N W Calabrian margin) in the southeastern Tyrrhenian Sea. The Paola Ridge has recently been interpreted as due to a mobile mud belt, consisting of diapirs (D1, D2 and D3) and mud volcanoes (MMV and RMV), connected to a set of NW-SE to NNW-SSE trending extensional faults. With the aim of proving this interpretation, the MVP11 and MarBeep oceanographic cruises were carried out in 2011 and 2014 on board the R/V CNR Urania. During the cruises, multi-beam bathymetric data, CHIRP profiles, gravity coring and box coring samples were collected to define the sedimentological characteristics, the petrographical, mineralogical, geochemical and isoptopic composition of the sediments and rocks sampled in the study area. The results of the geochemical analyses allowed to define the depths of the biogeochemical zones and the main geochemical processes involving seeping of deep seated fluids and affecting the marine environment where the sediments were deposited.