Influence of precipitation and deep saline groundwater on the hydrological systems of Mediterranean coastal plains: a general overview.

The increasing water demand is a concern affecting many regions in the Mediterranean Basin. To over- come this situation rim countries resorted during the last decades to a massive mobilization of their water resources, often resulting in excessive water exploitation. In such a context, understanding the effects of present recharge and aquifer salinization is crucial for correct water management. Understanding the present hydrogeological situation of coastal plains requires the knowledge of both their past morphologic conditions and their recent geological evolution. Within this framework, this paper presents a review of water related problems in the Mediterranean Basin. It suggests a conceptual model for groundwater resources in Mediterranean coastal plains, deriving from the present and past recharge processes. Special attention is paid to providing a better understanding of climate change impacts on water quantity and quality, and conservation of ecological diversit

From nappe stacking to out-of-sequence postcollisional deformations: Cretaceous to Quaternary exhumation history of the SE Carpathians assessed by low-temperature thermochronology

Apatite fission track (AFT) and (U‐Th)/He (AHe) thermochronology have been combined to constrain the exhumation history of the SE Carpathians. Cooling ages generally decrease from Cretaceous for the internal basement nappes (AFT ages), to Miocene–Quaternary (AFT and AHe, respectively) for the external sedimentary wedge. The AFT and AHe data show a Paleogene age cluster, which confirms a suspected but never demonstrated\ud tectonic event. The new data furthermore suggest that the SE Carpathians have been affected by a middle Miocene exhumation phase related to continental collision, which occurred at rates of ∼0.8 mm/yr, similar to the one previously inferred for the East Carpathians. The SE Carpathian tectonic evolution, however, is overprinted by two younger exhumation events in the Pliocene–Pleistocene. The first exhumation phase (latest Miocene–early Pliocene) occurred at high exhumation rates (∼1.7 mm/yr) and is interpreted as a tectonic event and/or associated with a sea level drop in the Paratethys basins during the Messinian low stand. The youngest recorded tectonic phase suggests rapid Pleistocene exhumation (∼1.6 mm/yr) and is interpreted to represent crustal‐scale shortening different in mechanics from collisional processes. The data suggest that the SE Carpathians did not develop as a typical double‐vergent orogenic wedge; instead, exhumation was related to a foreland‐vergent sequence of nappe stacking during collision and was subsequently followed by a large out‐of‐sequence shortening event truncating the already locked collisional boundary