Jean-Pierre Bouillin

Middle Oligocene extension in the Mediterranean Calabro‐Peloritan belt (southern Italy): Insights from the Aspromonte nappes pile

The Calabro-Peloritan belt constitutes the eastward termination of the southern segment of the Alpine Mediterranean belt. This orogenic system was built up during the convergence between the Eurasian and the African plates, roughly directed North-South since the Upper Cretaceous. It was subsequently fragmented during the opening of the Western Mediterranean basins since Oligocene times. The curved shape of the Calabro-Peloritan belt was acquired during the opening of the Tyrrhenian basin since Tortonian. The origin, kinematics and significance of the Calabro-Peloritan tectonic pile are still debated. Our data in the Aspromonte Massif of Southern Calabria reveal an Alpine history marked by two main superimposed kinematic regimes. (i) A first phase corresponds to the piling up of basement nappes with a top-to-the-SE vergence, i.e in a direction orthogonal to the belt trend and towards the Adriatic foreland. This external vergence is similar to what is observed in both Northeastern Sicily and Northern Calabria. In Sicily, the age of nappe piling is Alpine, as evidenced by pinched slices of Mesozoic sediments. In the Aspromonte Massif, thrusting age is less constrained. Our data suggest remnants of late Hercynian structuration before the Alpine stacking. (ii) A second phase corresponds to the thinning of the continental crust, dated at around 30 Ma by both geochronological and stratigraphical data. This extension is mainly localized on two low-angle detachment contacts, with top-to-the-NE displacement. The lower one corresponds to the reworking of the former main nappe contact. The upper one is a large detachment fault cutting across the pile from upper sedimentary levels down to metamorphic basement. Extension of similar Alpine age and similar internal vergence has been already recognized in other parts of the Calabro-Peloritan Arc: in the basement nappes of Northeastern Sicily and in the ophiolitic units of Northern Calabria. Coming back to the original geometry and position of the Calabro-Peloritan belt, before its bending and the opening of the Liguro-Provencal and Tyrrhenian basins, we evidence a homogeneous Oligocene NE-SW extension all along the Calabro-Peloritan segment of the Alpine Mediterranean belt. This tectonometamorphic history is best explained within the framework of the continuous Tertiary westward dipping subduction of the Tethyan oceanic domain below the European active margin and the progressive eastward retreat of the Apennine trench since Oligocene times.

Fission track study: heating and denudation of marginal ridge of the Ivory Coast–Ghana transform margin

Abstract Six sandstone blocks sampled during dives along the southern slope of the Ivory Coast–Ghana continental margin have been studied using fission tracks in apatite and zircon. Measurements demonstrate that the rocks were heated above 120°C but below 390°C and cooled quickly. The ages of cooling recorded by the apatite crystals are 90 Ma in the western part of the margin, and 80–70 Ma in the central and eastern part. Heating is interpreted by the heat liberation due to the friction along the active transform fault and by the vicinity of an oceanic spreading center, which slipped along the margin. Cooling is interpreted by two stages of denudation due to minor faults and landslides produced by the increasing of the bathymetric step between the continental margin and the oceanic crust.

Premières données thermo-chronologiques sur les socles sarde et kabylo-péloritain submergés dans le canal de Sardaigne (Méditerranée occidentale)

Abstract Granite and gneiss sampled from the submarine fault scarps of the Sardinia Channel were dated using the apatite fission-track method. One sample provides an age of 22.8± 1.3 Ma, which is in the range of the cooling ages of the Calabrian-Peloritan basement, where cooling is due to erosion. Three other samples have ages around 10 Ma, probably due to a tectonic denudation during the Tortonian extension in the Sardinia Channel.

Un escarpement sous-marin permanent du Lias à l'Eocène, dans la dorsale calcaire Péloritaine (Sicile, Italie)

The schistosity of the Palaeozoic basement of the Capo San Andrea unit (Peloritan Dorsale) is cut by Liassic to Eocene neptunian dykes which developed along a pelagic fault scarp exposed on the sea bottom for 140 My. The Mesozoic structures determined the location of the Alpine deformation.

Données géochronologiques 40Ar/39Ar sur les socles sarde et kabylo-péloritain submergés dans le canal de Sardaigne (Méditerranée occidentale)

Abstract Granite and gneiss have been sampled on the submarine fault scarps of the Sardinia Channel and have been dated using the 40Ar/39Ar method. The majority of rocks partially preserve Hercynian ages. Some of them display Lower Cretaceous ages. In addition, Upper Eocene-Oligocene argon resetting is recorded only in rocks from the southeast sector of the Channel. We thus propose that the basement of the Sardinia Channel occupied a shallow position within the stack of the Alpine tectonic units, behind the more deformed front of the internal zones of the Maghrebide Chain.