Understanding the Alpine Mediterranean chains Introduction

Mark. R. Handy Outline

• Mountains belts and basins

• Tectonic plates

• Oceans

• Deep structure

• Seismicity -Himalayas

this course

Google Earth Mediterranean plates & 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)

?

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

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

" " Area of subducted lithosphere from plate motion reconstruction

W G!+#&)0'729+ KL R F&+#&)0'729+5

D!2!$+'!0.' KL E$&3/0#'="&!0 KL MHM KL MHM MHM :-&)$!0'>!)<$0 7.)$!#$"'>!)<$0 MHM B&#$"'>!)<$0 MNJ J MHM A$-)!2#!) MNJ 7*+#)/?!29$.&+

7)" # " >&2$!#!? " # >!2$!"? MHM # @!2+#!##'>!)<$0D!.!)

J "

C$4'>!)<$0 7.)$!#$"':0.&0#&) " '="&!0 ;$<*)$!0'="&!0 # #" J MNJ

!"#"$% # "

" #

MHM # /"&!0$" " " >!<()&-$.&!0'>!)<$0 ;$<*)$!0'>!)<$0 # "/0#$0&0#!2 *0+*-.*"#&. HI 8$0!)$.&+

!"# # "

/"&!0$" 79&00$0&+ #

"/0#$0&0#!2 "

+*-.*"#&. " 2$3$#'/4'"/0#$0&0#!2'+*-.*"#$/0!"# # #

" !"!"!"#$%&'#()*+#, HI +*-.*"#$/0'1/0& # "

HI &.<&'/4'3!9'4/)'HI'>! HI " J # J

" 6!2!-)$!0 7)" ' () &'' Handy et al. 2010 Sites of subducted Tethyan lithosphere

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.