## 2 South-Eastern Sicily: Geodynamic and Geological Setting  
South-eastern Sicily, between the Catania Plain in the north and Capo Passero in the south, is shaped by compressional, extensional and strike slip movements related to the relative motion of the Africa and Eurasia tectonic plates, where geodynamic processes associated with subduction of the Ionian lithosphere beneath the Calabrian arc cause a complex volcano-tectonics [35; 36] (Figure 1). The geology of this region shows thick Mesozoic to Quaternary carbonate sedimentary sequences and volcanic layers forming the emerged foreland of the Sicilian-Maghrebian thrust belt [37]. The most important tectonic domains of this area are the Hyblean Plateau and the Malta escarpment. The latter is a Mesozoic boundary separating the continental domain from the oceanic crust of the Ionian basin, reactivated during the Quaternary [38; 39; 40].  
Since the Early-Middle Pleistocene, active faulting has contributed to extensional deformation along the coastal sector of south-eastern Sicily, where NNW-SSE trending normal faults control the Ionian shoreline [41; 40; 42]. These structures are mostly located offshore and their Quaternary activity is probably associated with the recent reactivation of the Malta Escarpment system [43]. This area is marked by a high level of crustal seismicity that released earthquakes of a magnitude of about 7, such as the destructive events occurred in 1169, 1542 and 1693 [44; 45]. The seismogenic sources of these historical events is still debated but they are likely located in the Malta Escarpment, between Catania and Siracusa [46; 47; 48; 49; 36; 40; 42; 43]. The last major earthquake (ML 5.4) occurred on December 13, 1990 in the Augusta off-shore [50; 51; 52].  
Due to geodynamic processes, such as the retreating of the subducted Ionian slab [53; 54; 55] or asthenospheric flow beneath a decoupled crust [56; 57], and off-shore normal faulting [43; 58], during the Late Quaternary, this area has been affected by regional uplifting. Uplift progressively decreases north of southern Calabria and south of north-eastern Sicily, as shown by flights of marine terraces developed along the coasts [53; 59; 60; 61]. In the northern sector of south-eastern Sicily, the long-term uplift has been estimated at rates of 0.2-0.7 mm/year from Middle-Upper Quaternary marine terraces and paleo-shorelines [40; 58; 62; 63], gradually decreasing to zero toward the stable areas of the south-eastern corner of Sicily [59; 64].  
Toward the south-eastern corner of Sicily, the observed uplift also decreases during the Holocene. In fact, archaeological and borehole evidence show vertical land stability or weak uplift during the late Holocene [65; 66; 67; 68].  
On the other hand, levelling surveys performed since 1970 [61; 69] and more recent GNSS data [70; 71; 29] and InSAR analysis [72], highlighted a diffuse and interseismic low rate land subsidence between Catania and Siracusa, which is in contrast with the long term geological uplift of this region.  
The studied coastal area has been affected by several marine extreme events in historical times. Effects of several tsunamis have been reconstructed from the analyses of boulder accumulation [73], high-energy deposits [74] and cores performed inside la goons [75; 76]. The analysed area also experienced the effects of several storms and Medicanes occurred over the last decades, mainly represented by boulders dislocation along the coastal area [19]. This is particularly important considering that in a SLR scenario the effects of the extreme marine events will probably impact on the coastal landscapes currently emerged [31; 32; 68; 77; 78; 79; 80].