Macro- and meso-scale structural criteria for identifying pre-thrusting normal faults within foreland fold-and-thrust belts: Insights from the Central-Northern Apennines (Italy)

Reliable macro- and meso-scale structural criteria for identifying pre-thrusting normal faults within inversion-dominated foreland thrust belts are here reappraised by showing field cases from the Central-Northern Apennines of Italy. Field-based analyses of relative chronologies among the structures allow determination of the timing of pre-thrusting normal faulting, the positive inversion of the faults and their post-thrusting reactivation when absolute chronostratigraphic constraints are lacking. The correct identification of pre-thrusting normal faults allows recognition of shortcut and reactivation anticlines, and these have important implications for the definition of the thrust-belt structural style and for the estimation of post-orogenic extension. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd