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During the Miocene, hydrocarbon seep-carbonates located atop intrabasinal highs and associated with sediment instability, formed commonly at the deformation front of the Northern Apennine collisional orogen. The parallelism between the structural trend and the distribution of seep-carbonates suggests a close relationship between tectonics and gas/fluid emission. The “Montepetra intrabasinal high” was formed during the closure stage of the foredeep, being related to the synsedimentary growth of an anticline. Field geometry suggests that detachment folding was the leading mechanism of anticline growth and synsedimentary instability along the anticline flanks. Ten different bodies of seep-carbonates occur in the Tortonian–early Messinian sediments: nine in the hinge zone and one in the southern backlimb of the anticline. Foraminiferal study, geochemistry, facies investigation and the three-dimensional …