Introduction: Analysing Orogeny—The Alpine Approach
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Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 Introduction: analysing orogeny—the Alpine approach S. SIEGESMUND1,B.FU¨ GENSCHUH2 & N. FROITZHEIM3 1Gottinger Zentrum Geowissenschaften, University of Go¨ttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 03, D-37077, Go¨ttingen (e-mail: [email protected]) 2Institut fu¨r Geologie & Pala¨ontologie, Universita¨t Innsbruck, Innrain 52, A–6020, Innsbruck 3Geologisches Institut, Universita¨t Bonn, Nuballe 8, D–53115, Bonn The European Alps, the prototype collisional Schulz et al. present a compilation and review orogen and playground of geologists from all over of geochronological, geochemical and structural the world, have been studied by generations of data from the Austroalpine basement south of Earth scientists. The density of data is probably the Tauern Window and reconstruct the evolution matched by no other mountain chain. Still, the of these units from a Neoproterozoic to Ordovi- Alpine chain is far from being over-studied, since cian active margin setting, through a subsequent many fundamental questions have not yet found a passive-margin setting at the northern periphery satisfactory and generally accepted answer, e.g. of Palaeo-Tethys, to Variscan collisional tec- the formation of the Western Alpine arc. In recent tonics, Permian rifting, and Cretaceous collisional years however, tectonic research on the Alpine tectonics, and finally to Tertiary shear-zone mountain chains has made dramatic progress due development and intrusion of the Rieserferner to new findings (e.g. coesite), new methods (e.g. Tonalite. GPS), and new—or newly considered—concepts The Permian part of the history is the subject of (e.g. subduction roll-back). Our picture of the three papers in this volume. During recent years, Alpine orogeny has changed completely. studies in the basement units have shown that Extremely important for Alpine research, the Permian rifting and the related magmatism and opening of borders between western and eastern metamorphism have strongly changed the structure parts of Europe has opened new perspectives: seen and composition of the Alpine basement, leading from the east, the Alps are the result of the junction to voluminous intrusions and widespread high- of the Dinarides and the Carpathians. Parts of the temperature/low-pressure metamorphism. These Alpine evolution, e.g. Jurassic tectonics in the inherited features of the basement had a strong Northern Calcareous Alps, can only be understood influence on Alpine tectonics. Siegesmund et al. in the context of processes in the Internal Dinarides analyse a cross-section of the Ivrea Zone, the and Internal Carpathians. The exchange of infor- most important tract of former lower continental mation and ideas between Alpine, Carpathian, crust exposed in the Alps, by means of structural Pannonian and Dinaride Earth scientists—in which geology and geochronology. In particular, they Stefan Schmid played and still plays a most import- present data from a shear zone (Rosarolo Shear ant role—has been fruitful for all sides. Zone) which formed in an extensional setting The present volume on the Alps, Carpathians during the Permian, contemporaneously with and Dinarides (Fig. 1) includes articles that are magmatic underplating, and was rotated into its related to key aspects of the tectonic evolution of present subvertical orientation during the Alpine these mountain chains. These articles are examples orogeny. The authors present evidence that the of the Alpine approach to orogeny, which combines entire Ivrea Zone was verticalized during the careful fieldwork with a broad variety of laboratory Alpine events, and not during the Permian (as methods, and integrates this into the extensive and suggested by other researchers). detailed knowledge base that has been accumulated Froitzheim et al. present field, microstructural over a long history of geological research. and textural evidence that the western part of the Orobic anticline in the southern Alps represents a Key aspects of Alpine, Carpathian Permian-age metamorphic core complex, and the and Dinaride tectonics basement-cover contact a top-to-the-SE, exten- sional detachment fault of Permian age as well. Pre-Alpine heritage and Alpine reactivation They demonstrate that normal shearing is coeval with both granitoid intrusion in the footwall of The Variscan continental basement in the Alps, Car- the detachment and volcanism in the hanging pathians and Dinarides is strongly heterogeneous. wall. This is the first description of a Permian From:SIEGESMUND, S., FU¨ GENSCHUH,B.&FROITZHEIM, N. (eds) Tectonic Aspects of the Alpine-Dinaride- Carpathian System. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 298,1–4. DOI: 10.1144/SP298.1 0305-8719/08/$15.00 # The Geological Society of London 2008. Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 2 S. SIEGESMUND ET AL. Fig. 1. Topography of the Alps, Carpathians and Dinarides (http://www.marine-geo.org/geomapapp; Carbotte et al. 2004). The study areas of papers in this volume are indicated: (1) Schulz et al.; (2) Siegesmund et al.; (3) Froitzheim et al.; (4) Vesela´ et al.; (5) Dallmeyer et al.; (6) Berger & Bousquet; (7) Tomljenovic et al.; (8) Gro¨ger et al.; (9) Rosenberg & Schneider; (10) Lammerer et al.; (11) Ustaszewski & Pfiffner; (12) Pleuger et al.; (13) Ciulavu et al.; (14) Tischler et al.; (15) Mikes et al.; (16) Nagel; (17) Bousquet et al.; and (18) Molli. detachment fault in the Alpine basement. It empha- by a complex palaeogeography which involved sizes the extensional character of Permian tec- microcontinents and ocean junctions. Changes in tonics, in contrast to some earlier studies which the tectonic style, e.g. from shortening to extension, rather suggested a transpressional setting. Vesela´ may be induced by palaeogeography, e.g. renewed et al. have studied the remains of Post-Variscan oceanic subduction after a continent collision. sedimentary basins, strongly deformed by Alpine Pre-orogenic palaeogeography therefore influences tectonics, in the western part of the Tauern or even controls processes as diverse as the devel- Window of the Eastern Alps. They present two opment of foreland and intramontane basins, oro- interesting new U–Pb zircon data and detailed genic curvature, lateral extrusion, the formation of sediment logs. Important conclusions are that the high- and ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks much-debated Kaserer Series is Upper Permian to and their exhumation. Anisian, and that the Late Carboniferous and Dallmeyer et al. focus on the Meliata zone in Permian clastic sediments were deposited in three the western Carpathians, where some of the earliest elongate, normal-fault-bounded intramontane stages of Alpine tectonics are recorded. The authors basins separated by horsts. They suggest that show that Middle to Late Jurassic subduction- these basins were formed in a basin-and-range-like related tectonics were followed, c. 50 Ma later, by extensional tectonic scenario, very much in accord- Middle Cretaceous thrusting when the Meliata ance with the findings of Froitzheim et al.in complex was emplaced on the Slovako-Carpathian this volume. The arrangement of horsts and units, and this was in turn followed by Late grabens predetermined the localization of major Cretaceous top-to-the-SE extension. This paper Alpine structures. yields new data and interpretations for a still poorly understood part of the common history of Mesozoic palaeogeography and Alpine the Carpathians, Dinarides and Alps. subduction and collision processes Berger & Bousquet review age data for the blueschist- and eclogite-facies metamorphism in Early plate-tectonic models of the Alps and other the Western and Central Alps. They conclude that collisional orogens suggested a rather simple the subduction-related metamorphism took place evolution including a phase of mainly oceanic from 62 to 35 Ma (roughly 100 Ma later than the subduction followed by a phase of continental blueschist metamorphism in the Meliata unit), but collision. However, structural, stratigraphic and at different times in different palaeogeographic/ geochronological studies have shown that in fact tectonic units. They assume that subduction was the Alps, Dinarides and Carpathians evolved in a continuous in the Western and Central Alps but series of subduction and collision events, dictated that the downgoing plate must have become Downloaded from http://sp.lyellcollection.org/ by guest on September 25, 2021 INTRODUCTION: ANALYSING OROGENY—THE ALPINE APPROACH 3 fragmented on a large scale in order to explain the on TRANSALP seismics and surface geology. available pressure, temperature and age data. They reconstruct how this cross-section evolved from an early stage of basement/cover duplex Extrusion tectonics: from the Eastern Alps formation, to the uplifting of the duplex by the activity of north-directed thrust ramps at a deeper to the Carpathians and the Pannonian Basin level. The authors emphasize the importance of The concept of eastward extrusion has been N–S shortening in the evolution of the Tauern successful in explaining the Tertiary to Recent Window during Tertiary times. Instead of eastward kinematics of the Eastern Alps. The driving forces tectonic escape, they rather suggest a kinematic of this process, however, as well as the relative framework of dextral transpression. importance of N–S shortening and E–W extension, are still a matter of debate. Four articles in the Orogen-parallel and orogen-perpendicular volume are related to this