Holocene and Late Pleistocene deposits beneath modern coastal plains can serve as valuable archives for deciphering the role of relative changes of sea level on facies architecture. For this relatively short interval of time: (i) sea-level and climatic histories are well established; (ii) a nearly continuous and tectonically undisturbed sedimentary succession is commonly available; (iii) high-resolution facies interpretation is coupled with very precise chronologic control; (iv) fossil assemblages are comparable to modern bioassemblages, and therefore can be used for refined paleoenvironmental interpretations.
We use detailed reconstructions of 3D facies architecture across genetically related, alluvial, coastal and shallow-marine depositional systems and a high-resolution chronological framework to discriminate between allogenic and autogenic processes that may have driven changes in stratigraphic architecture. Biofacies analyses focused on the meiofauna (benthic foraminifers and ostracods) and on mollusks allow quantitative estimates of changes in water depth, salinity and confinement levels, and provide the basis to trace small-scale (parasequence) boundaries for tens of km landwards of the coeval shorelines.
We focus on comparing deltaic systems from the Mediterranean area (Po, Rhône, Arno, Tiber, Volturno, Ombrone, and Biferno river deltas). This program has been enhanced by a recent, 3-year project (2014-2016) supported by ExxonMobil Upstream Research.