The Reservoir Characterisation Project: case studies and ongoing researches in central-south Italy

Aims and scopes of the Reservoir Characterisation (ReCh) Project are presented. The project derives from the mutual research experiences of a group of Italian academic geologists working on structural and sedimentological aspects of carbonate and clastic analogue outcrops exposed in central and south Italy. Structural geological case studies include: (i) mechanical stratigraphy of carbonate rocks, (ii) failure modes, fault development and related scaling properties, and (iii) field and laboratory analyses on nucleation and development of deformation bands. All these themes are focused on different sectors of the Apulia Carbonate Platform, including the Cretaceous paleo-slope in the Maiella Mountain (central Italy) and in the Gargano and Murge areas (southern Italy), and in the Favignana Island and in the Hyblean Plateau (Sicily). Sedimentological case studies derive from analysis of: (i) architecture and mechanical stratigraphy of coarse-grained slope canyon fills, (ii) facies and internal geometries in turbiditic channel-lobe transitions, and (iii) depositional architectures and internal facies heterogeneities in tidal sandbodies accumulated in tide-dominated strait-fill deposits. The main research areas where these topics were focused are from the Gelasian Peri- Adriatic basin, the Miocene thrust-top Gorgoglione Basin in Basilicata and the Quaternary Calabrian Arc, in southern Italy.