Low Strain Rate regions (LSRrs), i.e., areas undergoing tectonic deformation at rates of 1 mm/yr or less, often host important cities and highly vulnerable anthropogenic assets, and due to their subdued topography and relatively infrequent seismicity, are often considered low seismic hazard areas. Despite this, infrequent but high-magnitude earthquakes in such regions suggest that identifying active structures in the LSRr is one of the primary challenges for both the scientific community and modern societies. In such regions, one of the main issues in identifying active faults is the lack of valuable outcrop data due to erosional/sedimentation rates overwhelming the fault deformation, causing the hidden morphological signature of the tectonic structures.

This work proposes a multidisciplinary approach designed to detect active geological structures and their related deformation in such areas. Our approach consists of quantitative morphotectonic, offshore and onshore tectonostratigraphic and GNSS joint analyses. To test this approach, we selected as a natural laboratory the partially offshore northern Sicilian LSRr (southern Italy) in the coastal sector located between the two major cities of Palermo and Termini Imerese. This area includes the compressional structures of the northern sector of the Apennine-Maghrebian fold and thrust belt, presently accommodating the slow Africa-Europe plate convergence.

The main results we achieved are 1) new evidence of active tectonic deformation in this region; 2) the 3D modelling of two NNW-trending active faults; 3) the slip rate of a segment of the westernmost of the two detected faults; 4) a newly recorded relative GNSS velocity field; 5) a new morphotectonic map and morphotectonic evolution model of the study area. Our multidisciplinary approach allowed us to shed new light on the active tectonic framework of a slowly deforming area that crosses the physical limit of the coastline.

低应变率区域 (LSRrs)，即以 1 毫米/年或以下的速度发生构造变形的区域，通常拥有重要的城市和高度脆弱的人为资产，并且由于其地形低缓和相对不频繁的地震活动，通常被认为是低地震危险区域。尽管如此，在这些地区发生罕见但高震级的地震表明，识别 LSRr 中的活动结构是科学界和现代社会面临的主要挑战之一。在这些地区，识别活动断层的主要问题之一是缺乏有价值的露头数据，因为侵蚀/沉积速率压倒了断层变形，导致构造结构的隐藏形态特征。

这项工作提出了一种多学科方法，旨在检测这些地区的活动地质结构及其相关变形。我们的方法包括定量形态构造、近海和陆上构造地层学和 GNSS 联合分析。为了测试这种方法，我们选择了位于巴勒莫和 Termini Imerese 两个主要城市之间沿海地区的部分近海的西西里北部 LSRr（意大利南部）作为自然实验室。该区域包括亚平宁-马格里布褶皱和冲断带北段的压缩构造，目前适应了缓慢的非洲-欧洲板块汇聚。

我们取得的主要成果是1）该地区活动构造变形的新证据；2）两个NNW向活动断层的3D建模；3) 两个检测到的断层中最西端的一段滑移率；4) 新记录的相对 GNSS 速度场；5）研究区新的形态构造图和形态构造演化模型。我们的多学科方法使我们能够对跨越海岸线物理极限的缓慢变形区域的活跃构造框架提供新的认识。