Geochronology, pedostratigraphy, and late Quaternary landscape evolution in the western Po Plain (northern Italy)

: Deciphering the Late Quaternary evolution of the landscape is the key to understand the dynamics of the territory, to reconstruct its recent evolution and hypothesize its future trend. With this in mind, in the recent years a number of tectonic and morphostratigraphic studies were performed in the Piedmont sector of the Western Po Plain, with the intention to reconstruct its landscape evolution since the Plio-Pleistocene. In particular, new seismotectonic models have been defined to characterize the state of activity of the fold and thrust belt along the Torino Hill – Monferrato Arc, and the related seismic potential. In fact, according to the available historical and instrumental information the local seismicity level should be considered very low. This hypothesis was questioned after the 2012 Modena sequence, which raised the concern that earthquake hazards in the Po Plain have been largely overlooked until now. The detailed analysis of Quaternary landscapes is the key for attacking this issue. The evolutionary framework obtained so far, however, lacks a robust radiometric time reference, which would give a more precise definition of the Pleistocene fault slip-rates and their variability in time and space along the different segments of the Monferrato Arc. This opens a new research perspective, aimed to a detailed geochronological characterization of the western part of the Po river basin, through the use of innovative dating techniques, such as cosmogenic nuclide and OSL dating. The widespread presence of well preserved flights of terraces sealed by sequences of loess deposits makes the study area a unique natural laboratory for this kind of research.