Graduated with honors in 2000 at the University of Pisa, under the supervision of Prof. Marroni, she has kept working with Marroni's group as PhD student, starting a cooperation with Prof. Casey Moore of the University of California at Santa Cruz, U.S.A. During the undergraduate thesis work she has taken a multidisciplinary study of the carbonate slates exploited in the Ligurian Apennines, to define the relationship between structural features and quality of the exploited material. For this purpose, the meso- and micro-scale detailed structural analyses have been associated with European standard quality tests on slate samples.

At present, after PhD in 2003, she has a post-doc researcher position at the Earth Science Department of Pisa, together with part-time collaboration as visiting researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Starting from the PhD research, her activity is focused mainly on fluid-induced deformation during accretion at shallow levels in fossil accretionary prisms, focusing on the role of overpressured fluid migration in the mechanical state of accretionary thrusts. The studied on-land examples span from the Northern Apennines of Italy, to the Franciscan Complex of California and the Kodiak Accretionary Complex of Alaska.

The research, ranging continuously from micro-structural work to a reconstruction of tectonic processes at the scale of the prism, is approached with meso-scale analyses and various microstructural and geochemical techniques (optical and scanning electron microscopes, microprobe, XRD, XRF, stable isotpe geochemistry) applied to the analysis of brittle deformation in shear zones and to the study of syn-tectonic veins. Mass and fluid flow across the prism are investigated in order to ascertain their influence in promoting seismic behavior of décollement zone thrusts.

Marroni M., Meneghini F., Pandolfi L. (2004) - From accretion to exhumation in a fossil accretionary wedge: a case history from Gottero Unit (Northern Appennines, Italy). Geodinamica Acta, 17: 41-53.

Rowe, C.D., Moore, J.C., Meneghini, F, McKiernan, A.W. (2005) - Large-scale pseudotachylytes and fluidized cataclasites from an ancient subduction thrust fault. Geology, 33(12): 937-940.

Meneghini, F. & Moore, J.C. (2007) - Deformation and hydrofracture in a subduction thrust at seismogenic depths: The Rodeo Cove thrust zone, Marin Headlands, California. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull ., 119(1): 174-183.

Meneghini, F. , Marroni M., Pandolfi L. (2007) - Fluid flow during accretion in sediment-dominated margins: evidence of a high-permeability fossil fault zone from the Internal Ligurian accretionary units of the Northern Apennine, Italy. In press by Journal of Structural Geology, available online Dec 2006.