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

Deciphering the Late Quaternary evolution of the physical landscape is one of the key to understand the dynamics of the extant territory, to reconstruct its recent evolution and, consequently, hypothesize its future trending. With this assumption, 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. However, the 2012 Modena sequence raised the concern that earthquake hazards in this part of Northern Italy have been largely overlooked until now. The detailed analysis of Quaternary landscapes is the key for attacking this issue. The evolutionary framework obtained, however, lacks of 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. Then, this issue 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 datings.