Genesis of the Pieniny Klippen Belt in the Carpathians: Possible effects of a major paleotransform fault in the Neo-Tethyan domain

Jean Chorowicz (1)

1 iSTeP - Institut des Sciences de la Terre de Paris

The Pieniny Klippen Belt is a narrow, discontinuous zone rich in olistostromes and olistoliths (klippen) in the Western Carpathians. This paper based on prior works including tectonic and stratigraphic evidences suggests that the PKB rocks were deposited from the Triassic to the Early Paleogene along the eastern footwall side of a 'SKICZ' paleotransform fault zone. This transform was then separating the continental crust of the Austro-Alpine zone in the west and a Carpathian Embayment Ocean in the east. It was only during the Late Paleogene-Early Miocene that the PKB rocks were integrated into the accretionary prism that formed at the front of the eastward extruded ALCAPA units. This interpretation also supports the existence of a major paleotransform fault zone in the Neo-Tethys during the Triassic-Early Paleogene. This paleotransform had been previously suggested to explain the observed reversal in obduction and subduction at the junction between the Eastern-Southern Alps and the Carpathians-Dinarides.

Mots clés: Alps; Carpathians; Dinarides; paleotransform; Pieniny Klippen Belt; paleogeography

Domaines: Tectonique

Jean Chorowicz. Genesis of the Pieniny Klippen Belt in the Carpathians: Possible effects of a major paleotransform fault in the Neo-Tethyan domain. Comptes Rendus Géoscience, 2016, 348 (1), pp.15-22. ⟨10.1016/j.crte.2015.10.003⟩. ⟨hal-01239459v2⟩