Open Access
Geodynamic evolution of the central and western Mediterranean: Tectonics vs. igneous petrology constraints
Eugenio Carminati,Michele Lustrino,Carlo Doglioni +2 more
- Vol. 21, pp 119-120
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this paper, a geodynamic reconstruction of the Central-Western Mediterranean and neighboring areas during the last 50 million years was presented, including magmatological and tectonic observations.Abstract:
We present a geodynamic reconstruction of the Central–Western Mediterranean and neighboring areas during the last 50 Myr, including magmatological and tectonic observations. This area was interested by different styles of evolution and polarity of subduction zones influenced by the fragmented Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic paleogeography between Africa and Eurasia. Both oceanic and continental lithospheric plates were diachronously consumed along plate boundaries. The hinge of subducting slabs converged toward the upper plate in the double-vergent thick-skinned Alps–Betics and Dinarides, characterized by two slowly-subsiding foredeeps. The hinge diverged from the upper plate in the single-vergent thin-skinned Apennines–Maghrebides and Carpathians orogens, characterized by a single fast-subsiding foredeep. The retreating lithosphere deficit was compensated by asthenosphere upwelling and by the opening of several back-arc basins (the Ligurian–Provencal, Valencia Trough, Northern Algerian, Tyrrhenian and Pannonian basins). In our reconstruction, the W-directed Apennines–Maghrebides and Carpathians subductions nucleated along the retro-belt of the Alps and the Dinarides, respectively. The wide chemical composition of the igneous rocks emplaced during this tectonic evolution confirms a strong heterogeneity of the Mediterranean upper mantle and of the subducting plates. In the Apennine–Maghrebide and Carpathian systems the subduction-related igneous activity (mostly medium- to high-K calcalkaline melts) is commonly followed in time by mildly sodic alkaline and tholeiitic melts. The magmatic evolution of the Mediterranean area cannot be easily reconciled with simple magmatological models proposed for the Pacific subductions. This is most probably due to synchronous occurrence of several subduction zones that strongly perturbed the chemical composition of the upper mantle in the Mediterranean region and, above all, to the presence of ancient modifications related to past orogeneses. The classical approach of using the geochemical composition of igneous rocks to infer the coeval tectonic setting characteristics cannot be used in geologically complex systems like the Mediterranean area.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Mantle dynamics in the Mediterranean
Claudio Faccenna,Thorsten W. Becker,Ludwig Auer,Andrea Billi,Lapo Boschi,Jean-Pierre Brun,Fabio A. Capitanio,Francesca Funiciello,Ferenc Horváth,Laurent Jolivet,Claudia Piromallo,Leigh H. Royden,Federico Rossetti,Enrico Serpelloni +13 more
TL;DR: In this article, a conceptual and quantitative framework for the causes of surface deformation in the Mediterranean is discussed, which can be outlined by two, almost symmetric, upper mantle convection cells.
Journal ArticleDOI
Alps vs. Apennines: The paradigm of a tectonically asymmetric Earth
Eugenio Carminati,Carlo Doglioni +1 more
TL;DR: Alps and Apennines developed along opposite subductions, which inverted the tethyan passive continental margins located along the boundaries of Europe, Africa and the Adriatic plates as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tectonic units of the Alpine collision zone between Eastern Alps and western Turkey
Stefan M. Schmid,Bernhard Fügenschuh,Alexandre Kounov,Liviu Maţenco,Peter Nievergelt,Roland Oberhänsli,Jan Pleuger,Senecio Schefer,Ralf Schuster,Bruno Tomljenović,Kamil Ustaszewski,Douwe J.J. van Hinsbergen +11 more
TL;DR: In this article, a map that correlates tectonic units between Alps and western Turkey accompanied by a text providing access to literature data is presented, explaining the concepts used for defining the mapped Tectonic Units, and first-order paleogeographic inferences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Geodynamics and metallogeny of the eastern Tethyan metallogenic domain
Zengqian Hou,Hongrui Zhang +1 more
TL;DR: The Tethyside orogenic system consists of a group of diverse Tethyan blocks, including the Istanbul, Sakarya, Anatolide-Taurides, Central Iran, Afghanistan, Songpan-Ganzi, Eastern Qiangtang, Western QiangTang, Lhasa, Indochina, Sibumasu, and Western Burma blocks, which were separated from Gondwana, drifted northwards, and accreted to the Eurasian continent by opening and closing of two successive Tthyan oceanic basins (Pale
Journal ArticleDOI
Caveats on tomographic images
Gillian R. Foulger,Giuliano F. Panza,Giuliano F. Panza,Irina M. Artemieva,Ian D. Bastow,Fabio Cammarano,John R. Evans,Warren Hamilton,Bruce R. Julian,Michele Lustrino,Hans Thybo,T. B. Yanovskaya +11 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a relatively non-technical summary of the most important limitations and uncertainties in seismic tomography results, collected together in a single paper, and presented in a form accessible to non-seismologists.
References
More filters
Book
Orogenic Andesites and Plate Tectonics
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define Orogenic Andesite and discuss its properties and properties, including the following: 1.1 Topography, gravity, heat flow, and conductivity.
Journal ArticleDOI
A plate tectonic model for the Paleozoic and Mesozoic constrained by dynamic plate boundaries and restored synthetic oceanic isochrons
TL;DR: In this article, a plate tectonic model for the Paleozoic and Mesozoic (Ordovician to Cretaceous) integrating dynamic plate boundaries, plate buoyancy, ocean spreading rates and major Tectonic and magmatic events was developed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Experimentally based water budgets for dehydrating slabs and consequences for arc magma generation
Max W. Schmidt,Stefano Poli +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, phase diagrams of hydrous mid-ocean ridge (MOR) basalts to 330 km depth and hydrous peridotites to 250 km depth are compiled for conditions characteristic for subduction zones.
Journal ArticleDOI
Extension in the Tyrrhenian Sea and Shortening in the Apennines as Result of Arc Migration Driven by Sinking of the Lithosphere
TL;DR: In this paper, an arc migration model was proposed to explain the dynamic relationship between extension in the Tyrrhenian basin and compression in the Apennines, and the estimated contemporaneous (post-middle Miocene) amounts of extension and shortening in the apennines appear to be very similar.
Journal ArticleDOI
Geological evolution of the tethys belt from the atlantic to the pamirs since the LIAS
J. Dercourt,L.P. Zonenshain,L. E. Ricou,V. G. Kazmin,X. Le Pichon,A. L. Knipper,C. Grandjacquet,I.M. Sbortshikov,J. Geyssant,Claude Lepvrier,D.H. Pechersky,J. Boulin,Jean-Claude Sibuet,L. A. Savostin,O. Sorokhtin,M. Westphal,Mikhail L. Bazhenov,J. P. Lauer,B. Biju-Duval +18 more
TL;DR: In this article, the evolution of the Tethys belt from the Pliensbachian (190 Ma) to the Tortonian (10 Ma) is depicted at 1 20,000,000 scale.
Related Papers (5)
Subduction Orogeny and the Late Cenozoic Evolution of the Mediterranean Arcs
Leigh H. Royden,Claudio Faccenna +1 more
Geochemistry and tectonic development of Cenozoic magmatism in the Carpathian–Pannonian region
Ioan Seghedi,Hilary Downes +1 more