Understanding the Alpine Mediterranean chains Introduction
Mark. R. Handy Outline
• Mountains belts and basins
• Tectonic plates
• Oceans
• Deep structure
• Seismicity Alps-Himalayas
this course
Google Earth Mediterranean plates & subduction directions Cenozoic orogens & basins
Carpathians
Pannonian Alps ApenninesDinaridesBasin Black Sea Liguro- Hellenides Betic Cordillera Provencal Alboran Tyrrhenian Rif Maghrebides Aegean
Ionian
Pre-Cenozoic
Royden, 1988, AAPG Memoir Tectonic plates & their boundaries today
Adriatic Plate Tectonic plates & subduction polarities
Eurasia = lower plate
Africa & Adria = lower plate Mantle structure
ALPS subducting lithosphere (slabs)
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F. Horvath flowing asthenosphere Mesozoic & Cenozoic plates and microplates
Europe AlcapaTisza-Dacia
Adria Iberia
Alcapeca
Africa
Handy et al. 2010 Tethys Tethys: goddess of the seas, sister & wife of Oceanus, mother of Achilles and of all rivers 200 Ma Eurasia
Tethys
Gondwana
http://www.serg.unicam.it/Reconstructions.htm
“....the great ocean that once stretched across Eurasia” whose “folded and crumpled deposits stand forth to heaven in Tibet, Himalaya and the Alps” (E. Suess 1893) Past & present ocean basins and sutures Neotethys Alpine Tethys northern branch 2 sutures 4 sutures: • Valais • Meliata-Maliac • Piemont-Liguria • E & W Vardar • Sava
Neotethys southern branch • Ionian Basin W. Med. Basins • Liguro-Provencal • Alboran
Handy et al. 2010 • Tyrrhenian Past tectonic approaches to the “ocean problem”
Abbate 1970, Sedimentary Geology The Alps as the product of changing plate motion
175 Ma stable Europe
In many models, 35 Ma Adria considered 118 Ma part of Africa from 175 Ma – Present
stable Europe
Dewey et al. 1989 0 Ma Africa (here includes Adria) moved sinistrally with respect to Europe from 175 to 130-118 Ma, then moved 175 Ma 35 Ma northwards while rotating 118 Ma counterclockwise. Past oceans – paleogeography Alpine Tethys • Valais Dercourt et al. 1986 • Piemont • Liguria future Alps-Carpathians Iberia
future Dinarides Neotethys (north) • Meliata-Maliac • W. Vardar Africa motion future Apennines relative to Europe
Neotethys (south) • Ionian Sea Early Cretaceous, 130 Ma Stampfli & Borel 2004 Schmid et al. 2008 Past ocean basins
Neotethys Mid-Jurassic Late Triaassic • Meliata-Maliac • Vardar
Alpine Tethys • Piemont-Liguria • Valais
Late Jurassic Late Jurassic
Adria
Late Cretaceous Late Cretaceous Past oceans & continental margins buried as slabs !"#$%&'( P-wave teleseismic tomography 550 km
Alpine Tethys Neotethys
# Spakman & Wortel 2004
550 km Alpine Tethys Neotethys
! Piromallo & Morelli 2003
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N limit of Alpine slab
-Valais Ocean Piemont Meliatia-Maliac Alcapia Ocean & Cont. Adriatic Cont. Margin E. Ligurian NW limit ofOcean, Alpine Ionian slab Sea & Aegean slab W. LigurianOcean & Europ. Adriatic Cont.
S limit of Apennine slab
Handy et al., in prep. Note - minor S or E displacement of European lithosphere with respect to the mantle transitional zone Seismicity
Cloetingh et al. 2007 Part of Robert Mallet’s map of global seismicity
1810-1881
1857 Earthquake hazard
Giardini et al. 2018 Present plate motions
Nocquet & Calais 2004 Literature Used in this lecture
Abatte, E., Bortolotti, V., Passerini, P., Sagri, M., 1970. Introduction to the geology of the Northern Apennines. Sedimentary Geology, 4, 3-4, 207-249.
Cloetingh, S.A.P.L., P.A. Ziegler, P.J.F. Bogaard, P.A.M. Andriessen, I.M. Artemieva, G. Bada, R.T. van Balen, F. Beekman, Z. Ben-Avraham, J.-P. Brun, H.P. Bunge, E.B. Burov, R. Carbonell, C. Facenna, A. Friedrich, J. Gallart, A.G. Green, O. Heidbach, A.G. Jones, L. Matenco, J. Mosar, O. Oncken, C. Pascal, G. Peters, S. Sliaupa, A. Soesoo, W. Spakman, R.A. Stephenson, H. Thybo, T. Torsvik, G. de Vicente, F. Wenzel, M.J.R. Wortel, TOPO-EUROPE Working Group, 2007. TOPO-EUROPE: The geoscience of coupled deep Earth-surface processes. Global and Planetary Change 58, 1–118.
Dercourt, J., Zonenshain, L.P., Ricou, L.-E., Kazmin, V.G., Le Pichon, X., Knipper, A.L., Grandjaquet, C., Sbortshikov, I.M., Geyssant, J., Lepvrier, C., Pechersky, D.H., Boulin, J., Sibuet, J.-C., Savostin, L.A., Sorokhtin, O., Westphal, M., Bazhenov, M.L., Lauer, J.P., Bijou- Duval, B., 1986. Geological evolution of the Tethys belt from the Atlantic to the Pamirs since the Lias. Tectonophysics 123, 241–315.
Handy, M.R., Schmid, S.M., Bousquet, R., Kissling, E., Bernoulli, D. 2010. Reconciling plate- tectonic reconstructions with the geological-geophysical record of spreading and subduction in the Alps. Earth Science Reviews, 102, 121-158. Literature
Nocquet, J.-M., Calais, E. 2004. Geodetic Measurements of Crustal Deformation in the Western Mediterranean and Europe. Pure Applied Geophysics, 161, 661–681. DOI 10.1007/s00024-003-2468-z
Schmid, S.M., Fügenschuh, B., Kissling, E., Schuster, R., 2004a. Tectonic Map and overall architecture of the Alpine orogen. Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae 97, 1, 93–117.
Historical literature
Mallet, R. 1847. The Dynamics of Earthquakes. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Royal Irish Academy, XXI, 51.