Sedimentologische Untersuchungen im Golf von Manfredonia (Südadria)

305 sediment samples were taken from the Gulf of Manfredonia during the years 1966-1969. About 540 km echo-sounding profiles were run in the gulf. More than 20 km² of the seafloor were examined by Scuba-divers. For 80 days bottom currents were measured by self-recording current meters. The Gulf of Manfredonia is supplied with sediments by the Apennine rivers Cervaro, Carapelle, and mainly by the river Ofanto, transporting clastic material from the volcanic complex of the Mount Vulture into the gulf. These sediments have a characteristical heavy mineral association (augitbasaltic hornblende - melanit), called the Ofanto-heavy mineral association. They are mainly redistributed to the North and Northwest by a clockwise (anticyclonic) eddy from the mouth of the river Ofanto. The Ofanto-heavy mineral association prevails in the sediments of the Southern Adriatic. Yet in the northern part of the gulf, the sediments with this mineral association are mixed with other sediments which are transported along the Italian coast of the Adriatic to the South-East by the SE flowing gradient current (Zore-Armanda, 1964). The provenance of these "northerly" sediments is assumed to be from the Apennine and the Po-River (padanic-apenninic heavy mineral association: garnet-epidote-hornblende-glaukophane). In the southern parts of the gulf a shoal, called "scogliera", was observed. The "scogliera" morphologically and litologically is very different from the surrounding muds and silty muds; it probably represents a paleo-coastline from a time of lowered sea-level.