Normal faults in thrust sheets: pre-orogenic extension, post-orogenic extension, or both?

In fold-and-thrust belts that experienced both pre-orogenic and post-orogenic extension, it may be difficult to establish whether observed normal faults pre-dated, post-dated, or were synchronous with thrusting. Geometrical structural patterns may be insufficient to constrain the relative chronology of extensional and contractional deformations. The systematic use of kinematic criteria makes it possible to unequivocally define the timing relationships of reverse and normal fault development, and hence to correctly unravel complex structural evolutions. Kinematic analysis in the southernmost Umbria–Marche Apennines of Italy, where both normal and thrust faults are present, revealed a history of repeated tectonic inversion, characterised by two distinct stages of extension separated by an episode of folding and thrusting. Structural overprinting relationships observed at thrust–normal fault intersections were useful for: (i) removing sequentially younger deformations; and hence (ii) separating and quantifying the effects of orogenic contraction from those of both pre-orogenic and post-orogenic extension.