## 2 Geological Framework of the Investigated Samples  
The Palazzolo Formation limestone, also called \"Noto stone\" was widely used in Sicilian Baroque monuments. It is locally called \"carving stone\", because it is easy to carve and, once exposed, it changes from a pale yellow color to a golden appearance [21]. The Palazzolo Formation has extensive outcrops in the Hyblean Plateau, in Southeastern Sicily, that represents a forebulge, a result from the bending of the African continental foreland lithosphere underneath the advancing Maghrebian thrust-fold belt. Moreover, belonging to the eastern Oligocene-Moocene palaeogeographic domain of the Cretaceous-Quaternary succession of the Hyblean plateau, it consists of shallow-water algal-bryozoan thick-bedded calcarenites overlying Cretaceous reef to lagoonal rudist limestones with intercalated pyroclastic rocks in the northeast [21]. The Palazzolo Formation, which is in transitional contact with the marls of the Tellaro Formation, can be divided into two members: the Gaetani and Buscemi members, the lower and upper part, respectively. They are characterized by heteroplastic relations, especially towards the east, where the Buscemi Formation is most represented. The recognized lithofacies are: (i) one consists of fine-grained gray limestones and soft marly limestones alternating in 20-40 cm thick beds and (ii) the other is characterized by yellowish-white limestones exposed in large bank levels. Comiso stone belongs to the lower Leonardo Member (upper Oligocene) of the Ragusa Formation (upper Oligocene-Moocene) in the Hyblean area, which is formed of alternating calcareous and marly layers. This stone, mainly made of calcite, well lithified, white-cream and fine-grained calcarenite, with tenacious consistency and homogeneous structure is collected in Eastern Sicily and was largely used in the monuments of the Baroque cities of the \"Val di Noto\" (i.e., Catania, Siracusa, Noto, Ragusa, and Modica) included in the UNESCO's World Heritage List, which were completely destroyed following the earthquake of 1693 [22]. The Comiso stone's outcropping can be found near the Comiso Chiaramonte System that stretches all the way to the Monterosso Almo hamlet and divides a raised area to the southeast where Oligo-Moocene limestones are found. The three main SW-NE trending, left-stepping en-echelon, dextral strike-slip faults--the Comiso, Chiaramonte, and Monterosso faults--form the SSW-NNE oriented shear zone that characterizes the structural setting. Pliocene volcanics and lower Pleistocene calcarenites predate the Comiso-Chiaramonte-Monterosso fault zone's period of deformation, while middle Pleistocene alluvial deposits postdate it. In response to the same stress field that caused the partial reactivation of Neogene normal faults with right-lateral strike-slip displacements and the neoforination of associated structures, characterized by the over-stepping geometry of the main faults, the fault system developed concurrently with the well-known Sicily-Ragusa dextral wrench zone, also oriented SSW-NNE, according to the simple shear model. Because of this, the Comiso-Chiaramonte-Monterosso fault zone and the Sicily-Ragusa system can be viewed as the onshore extension of the SSW-NNE directed transform zone that allowed the Pantelleria Rift to extend during the Plio-Pleistocene in the Strait of Sicily [23]. The \"Calcare di Mendicino\" is a part of the Tortonian-Messinian sedimentary succession that represents the infilling of the basins opened during the lower Tortonian in the western area of the Calabrian Arc. It is characterized by a clastic marine sequence that unconformably overlies the Paleozoic bedrock, dipping outward concerning the massif [24]. These deposits are further overlain in an unconformable manner by transgressive marine deposits from the upper Pliocene to the lower Pleistocene. In the western region of the Calabrian Arc, the forearc belt associated with the active subduction of the Ionian Basin, the filling of the basins formed during the lower Tortonian is described.