Albrecht Steck

The Tertiary structural and thermal evolution of the Central Alps—compressional and extensional structures in an orogenic belt

The Western Alpine Arc has been created during the Cretaceous and the Tertiary orogenies. The interference patterns of the Tertiary structures suggest their formation during continental collision of the European and the Adriatic Plates, with an accompanying anticlockwise rotation of the Adriatic indenter. Extensional structures are mainly related to ductile deformation by simple shear. These structures developed at a deep tectonic level, in granitic crustal rocks, at depths in excess of 10 km. In the early Palaeogene period of the Tertiary Orogeny, the main Tertiary nappe emplacement resulted from a NW-thrusting of the Austroalpine, Penninic and Helvetic nappes. Heating of the deep zone of the Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary nappe stack by geothermal heat flow is responsible for the Tertiary regional metamorphism, reaching amphibolite-facies conditions in the Lepontine Gneiss Dome (geothermal gradient 25°C/km). The Tertiary thrusting occurred mainly during prograde metamorphic conditions with creation of a penetrative NW-SE-oriented stretching lineation, XI(finite extension), parallel to the direction of simple shear. Earliest cooling after the culmination of the Tertiary metamorphism, some 38 Ma ago, is recorded by the cooling curves of the Monte Rosa and Mischabel nappes to the west and the Suretta Nappe to the east of the Lepontine Gneiss Dome. The onset of dextral transpression, with a strong extension parallel to the mountain belt, and the oldest S-vergent “backfolding” took place some 35 to 30 Ma ago during retrograde amphibolite-facies conditions and before the intrusion of the Oligocene dikes north of the Periadriatic Line. The main updoming of the Lepontine Gneiss Dome started some 32–30 Ma ago with the intrusion of the Bergell tonalites and granodiorites, concomitant with S-vergent backfolding and backthrusting and dextral strike-slip movements along the Tonale and Canavese Lines (Argands Insubric phase). Subsequently, the center of main updoming migrated slowly to the west, reaching the Simplon region some 20 Ma ago. This was contemporaneous with the westward migration of the Adriatic indenter. Between 20 Ma and the present, the Western Aar Massif-Toce culmination was the center of strong uplift. The youngest S-vergent backfolds, the Glishorn anticline and the Berisal syncline fold the 12 Ma Rb/ Sr biotite isochron and are cut by the 11 Ma old Rhone-Simplon Line. The discrete Rhone-Simplon Line represents a late retrograde manifestation in the preexisting ductile Simplon Shear Zone. This fault zone is still active today. The Oligocene-Neogene dextral transpression and extension in the Simplon area were concurrent with thrusting to the northwest of the Helvetic nappes, the Prealpes (35-15 Ma) and with the Jura thin-skinned thrust (11-3 Ma). It was also contemporaneous with thrusting to the south of the Bergamasc (> 35-5 Ma) and Milan thrusts (16-5 Ma). The Oligocene-Neogene dextral transpression in the Central Alps is of the same age as the thrusting to the west and southwest in the external (French) part and to the east in the internal (Italian) part of the Alpine Arc of the Western Alps.

Synorogenic extension: Quantitative constraints on the age and displacement of the Zanskar shear zone (northwest Himalaya)

Structural, thermobarometric, and geochronological data place limits on the age and tectonic displacement along the Zanskar shear zone, a major north-dipping synorogenic extensional structure separating the high-grade metamorphic sequence of the High Himalayan Crystalline Sequence from the overlying low-grade sedimentary rocks of the Tethyan Himalaya. A complete Barrovian metamorphic succession, from kyanite to biotite zone mineral assemblages, occurs within the 1-km-thick Zanskar shear zone. Thermobarometric data indicate a difference in equilibration depths of 12 ± 3 km between the lower kyanite zone and the garnet zone, which is interpreted as a minimum estimate for the finite vertical displacement accommodated by the Zanskar shear zone. For the present-day dip of the structure (20°), a simple geometrical model shows that a net slip of 35 ± 9 km is required to regroup these samples to the same structural level. Because the kyanite to garnet zone rocks represent only part of the Zanskar shear zone, and because its original dip may have been less than the present-day dip, these estimates for the finite displacement represent minimum values. Field relations and petrographic data suggest that migmatization and associated leucogranite intrusion in the footwall of the Zanskar shear zone occurred as a continuous process starting at the Barrovian metamorphic peak and lasting throughout the subsequent extension-induced exhumation. Geochronological dating of various leucogranitic plutons and dikes in the Zanskar shear zone footwall indicates that the main ductile shearing along the structure ended by 19.8 Ma and that extension most likely initiated shortly before 22.2 Ma.

Nappe geometry in the Western Swiss Alps

Detailed geological mapping during the last 20 years in the Western Swiss Alps has shown clearly that most of the lower basement nappes are fold nappes possessing normal and inverted limbs. Moreover their cores are made of strongly deformed gneisses indicating that important ductile strain took place during the formation of the fold nappes. It is therefore probably wrong to imagine deep basement nappes as rigid slices as often actually claimed, especially when interpreting seismic profiles. True ‘brittle type’ thrust nappes involving basement rocks only occur in the internal and upper parts of the belt. Cover nappes, on the contrary, are in most parts of the Alpine belt thrust sheets following more or less the rules of thin-skinned tectonics. Many basement fold nappes lost part of their sedimentary cover during or just before their formation, by decollement along ductile horizons. The result is that many cover thrust nappes in the external part of the Alps are directly related to their original basement fold nappes.

Exhumation history of eastern Ladakh revealed by 40 Ar/ 39 Ar and fission-track ages: the Indus River-Tso Morari transect, NW Himalaya

Fission-track and 40Ar/39Ar ages place time constraints on the exhumation of the North Himalayan nappe stack, the Indus Suture Zone and Molasse, and the Transhimalayan Batholith in eastern Ladakh (NW India). Results from this and previous studies on a north–south transect passing near Tso Morari Lake suggest that the SW-directed North Himalayan nappe stack (comprising the Mata, Tetraogal and Tso Morari nappes) was emplaced and metamorphosed by c. 50–45 Ma, and exhumed to moderately shallow depths (c. 10 km) by c. 45–40 Ma. From the mid-Eocene to the present, exhumation continued at a steady and slow rate except for the root zone of the Tso Morari nappe, which cooled faster than the rest of the nappe stack. Rapid cooling occurred at c. 20 Ma and is linked to brittle deformation along the normal Ribil–Zildat Fault concomitant with extrusion of the Crystalline nappe in the south. Data from the Indus Molasse suggest that sediments were still being deposited during the Miocene.

Tectonic evolution of the High Himalaya in Upper Lahul (NW Himalaya, India)

The Upper Lahul region in the NW Himalaya is located in the transition zone between the High Himalayan Crystalline (HHC) to the SW and the Tethyan Zone sedimentary series to the NE. The tectonic evolution of these domains during the Himalayan Orogeny is the consequence of a succession of five deformation events. An early Dl phase corresponds to synmetamorphic, NE verging folding. This deformation created the Tandi Syncline, which consists of Permian to Jurassic Tethyan metasediments cropping out in the core of a large-scale synformal fold within the HHC paragneiss. This tectonic event is interpreted as related to a NE directed nappe stacking (Shikar Beh Nappe), probably during the late Eocene to the early Oligocene. A subsequent D2a phase caused SW verging folding in the HHC. This deformation is interpreted as contemporaneous with late Oligocene to early Miocene SW directed thrusting along the Main Central Thrust. In the Tethyan Zone, a D2b phase is marked by a decollement thrust, a system of reverse faults, and gentle folds, associated with SW directed tectonic movements. This deformation is related to an imbricate structure, characteristic of a shallow structural level, and developed in the frontal part of a nappe affecting the Tethyan Zone units of SE Zanskar (Nyimaling-Tsarap Nappe). A later D3 phase generated the Chandra Dextral Shear Zone (CDSZ), a large-scale, ductile, dextral strike-slip shear zone, located in the transition zone between the HHC and the Tethyan Himalaya. The CDSZ most likely represents a part of a system of early Miocene extensional and/or dextral, strike-slip shear zones observed at the HHC-Tethyan Zone contact along the entire Himalaya. A final D4 phase induced large-scale doming and NE verging back folding.

Termination of major ductile strike-slip shear and differential cooling along the Insubric line (Central Alps): UPb, RbSr and 40Ar39Ar ages of cross-cutting pegmatites

Abstract To constrain the age of strike-slip shear, related granitic magmatism, and cooling along the Insubric line, 29 size fractions of monazite and xenotime were dated by the UPb method, and a series of 25 RbSr and 40 Ar 39 Ar ages were measured on different size fractions of muscovite and biotite. The three pegmatitic intrusions analyzed truncate high-grade metamorphic mylonite gneisses of the Simplon shear zone, a major Alpine structure produced in association with dextral strike-slip movements along the southern edge of the European plate, after collision with its Adriatic indenter. Pegmatites and aplites were produced between 29 and 25 Ma in direct relation to right-lateral shear along the Insubric line, by melting of continental crust having 87 Sr 86 Sr between 0.7199 and 0.7244 at the time of melting. High-temperature dextral strike-slip shear was active at 29.2 ± 0.2 (2σ) Ma, and it terminated before 26.4 ± 0.1 Ma. During dike injection, temperatures in the country rocks of the Isorno-Orselina and Monte Rosa structural units did not exceed ≈ 500°C, leading to fast initial cooling, followed by slower cooling to ≈ 350°C within several million years. In one case, initial cooling to ≈ 500°C was significantly delayed by about 4 m.y., with final cooling to ≈ 300°C at 20-19 Ma in all units. For the period between 29 and 19 Ma, cooling of the three sample localities was non-uniform in space and time, with significant variations on the kilometre scale. These differences are most likely due to strongly varying heat flow and/or heterogeneous distribution of unroofing rates within the continuously deforming Insubric line. If entirely ascribed to differences in unroofing, corresponding rates would vary between 0.5 and 2.5 mm/y, for a thermal gradient of 30°/km.

The tectonic evolution of the Northwestern Himalaya in eastern Ladakh and Lahul, India

Abstract Geological studies along a transect across the Himalaya in eastern Ladakh and Lahul provide new insights into the Tertiary structural evolution of this region. The initiation of the Nyimaling-Tsarap Nappe is related to an early phase of underthrusting of India below Asia. In Lahul, an opposite vergent intra-continental underthrusting develops immediately after continental collision (NE-vergent Tandi Syncline and Shikar Beh Nappe). This NE-vergent nappe stack is responsible for the amphibolite-facies regional metamorphism of the lower Chandra Valley. The subsequent phase corresponds to the main thrusting of the SW-vergent Nyimaling-Tsarap Nappe, developed by ductile shear (87 km Eocene shortening). This nappe pile is responsible for the regional metamorphism of SE Zanskar (kyanite-staurolite near Sarchu). The root zone and the frontal part of the Nyimaling-Tsarap Nappe are subsequently overprinted by two NW-SE-orientated dextral transpressional shear zones. To the south of the investigated area, the Main Central Thrust has been developed as a shear zone in the regional metamorphic ductile crustal rocks below the older nappes to the north. In the Sarchu and Nyimaling regions, the following tectonic phase corresponds to NE-vergent ‘backfolding’ (Miocene). Normal faults in the Sarchu area record a late extension of approximately 14 km.

Structure, geometry and kinematics of the northern Adula nappe (Central Alps)

The eclogitic Adula nappe of the Central Alps (cantons Graubünden and Ticino, Switzerland) displays an exceptionally complex internal structure with the particularity of enclosing numerous slices of Mesozoic cover rocks (Internal Mesozoic) within the Palaeozoic gneiss basement. This study is principally based on detailed lithological and structural mapping of selected areas of the northern Adula nappe. Specific focus was placed on the Mesozoic slivers embedded in pre-Mesozoic basement (Internal Mesozoic). The most pervasive structures are related to the Zapport deformation phase that is responsible for the development of a fold-nappe and ubiquitous north-directed shear. Locally, the structures in the upper and frontal part of the nappe can be assigned to the older ductile Ursprung phase. These earlier structures are only compatible with top-to-S shear movement. The superposition of the Ursprung and Zapport phases is responsible for the north-dipping internal duplex-like structure and the sliced aspect of the Northern and Central Adula nappe. We conclude that the Adula nappe represents a major shear zone involving the entire nappe and responsible for the emplacement of the Lower Penninic sediments and the Middle Penninic nappes in the eastern part of the Lepontine Dome.