This coastal area is framed between two main structural features active during the Pleistocene in northern Sicily: the Kabilian-Calabrian Thrust Front (west of Acquedolci) and the Vulcano-Tindari Fault (east of Patti). The occurrence of these structural features, the former compressive, the latter transcurrent, confirms that the study area is tectonically active and ¡°moves¡± vertically in differential mode. Fault systems separate blocks with different uplift rates both in onland and offshore areas. In the Gulf of Patti, the offshore area is subsiding, while contemporaneously uplift of the mainland can be observed. The study sector records the same uplift rates both during MIS?5.5 and the Holocene, in contrast to the other areas of Sicily.