Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Résumé : Structural, metamorphic, and geochronologic work shows that the Ampelos/Dilek nappe of the Cycladic blueschist unit in the eastern Aegean constitutes a wedge of high-pressure rocks extruded during early stages of orogeny. The extrusion wedge formed during the incipient collision of the Anatolian microcontinent with Eurasia when subduction and deep underthrusting ceased and the Ampelos/Dilek nappe was thrust southward over the greenschist-facies Menderes nappes along its lower tectonic contact, the Cycladic-Menderes thrust, effectively cutting out a ∼30- to 40-km-thick section of crust. The upper contact of the Ampelos/Dilek extrusion wedge is the top-to-the-NE Selçuk normal shear zone, along which the Ampelos/Dilek nappe was exhumed by ∼30–40 km. Detailed Rb-Sr and 40Ar/39Ar dating of mylonites demonstrates that both shear zones operated between 42 and 32 Ma. There is no evidence for episodic motion during the ∼10 Myr life span of the shear zones, suggesting that both shear zones operated in a steady, nonepisodic fashion. Our data provide supporting evidence that simultaneous thrust-type and normal sense shearing can accomplish the early exhumation of deep-seated rocks
ISSN: 0278-7407

hal-00405013
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00405013
DOI : 10.1029/2005TC001872

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Résumé : International audience
The Ama Drime range located at the transition between the high Himalayan range and south Tibet is a N-S active horst that offsets the South Tibetan Detachment System (STDS). Within the horst, a paragneissic unit, possibly attributed to the upper Himalayan crystalline series, overly the lower Himalayan crystalline series Ama Drime orthogneissic unit containing large metabasite layers and pods that have experienced pressure >= 1.4 GPa. Combining structural analysis with new and published pressure-temperature (P-T) estimates as well as U-Th/Pb, Ar-39/Ar-40 and (U-Th)/He ages, the P-T-deformation-time (P-T-D-t) paths of the main units within and on both sides of the horst are reconstructed. They imply that N-S normal faults initiated prior to 11 Ma and have accounted for a total exhumation <= 0.6 GPa (22 km) that probably occurred in two phases: the first one until similar to 9 Ma and the second one since 6 to 4 Ma at a rate of similar to 1 mm/yr. In the Ama Drime unit, 1 to 1.3 GPa (37 to 48 km) of exhumation occurred after partial melting since similar to 30 Ma until similar to 13 Ma, above the Main Central Trust (MCT) and below the STDS when these two fault systems were active together. The switch from E-W (STDS) to N-S (Ama Drime horst) normal faulting between 13 and 12 Ma occurs at the time of propagation of thrusting from the MCT to the Main Boundary Thrust. These data are in favor of a wedge extrusion or thrust system rather than a crustal flow model for the building of the Himalaya. We propose that the kinematics of south Tibet Cenozoic extension phases is fundamentally driven by the direction and rate of India underthrusting.
ISSN: 0278-7407

hal-00486405
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00486405
DOI : 10.1029/2009TC002551

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD AGU and the Geochemical Society
Résumé : International audience
Mélange rocks outcrop widely in the central and western frontal sectors of the Betic Cordillera, as in many other collisional orogens where they form part of the accretionary wedges. Extrusion of Triassic plastic clays and evaporites was favored by the progressive accretion of the Betic External Zones, mixing rocks of different provenance and forming a synorogenic frontal mélange unit. MT data coupled with gravity data are a valid combined methodology to characterize the geometry of these mélange units, since the characterization of plastic rocks geometry is usually uncertain using seismic techniques. The results correlate well with known geological features (sedimentary basins, calcareous ranges, evaporitic rocks) and reveal the deep geometry. A resistive body, slightly dipping toward the SE, points to the continuity of the Iberian Massif below the Guadalquivir basin (2°) and the External Zones (6-8°). To the south, gravity models show the Iberian continental crust subducting below the Internal Zones with a roughly 20-35° slope. The main conductive bodies are related to the location of evaporitic rocks involved in the frontal mélange. They overlie the Iberian Massif and, southwards, the frontal Jurassic and Cretaceous limestone sequences of the External and Median Subbetics. In this setting, thick plastic rock units placed above the foreland could act as a lubricant facilitating continental subduction, and being progressively accreted toward a frontal mélange.
ISSN: 1525-2027

hal-00750364
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00750364
DOI : 10.1029/2012GC004153

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Geophysical Union
Résumé : International audience
This study investigates three-dimensional flow modes of orogenic plateaus by means of physical modeling. Experiments consist of shortening two contiguous lithospheres of contrasting strength, one being a weak plateau-type lithosphere and the other a strong craton-type lithosphere. The lateral boundaries are either totally confined or allow escape toward a lateral foreland on one side. Two synconvergence flow regimes are distinguished, which are governed by the balance between the gravity potential and the strength of the plateau crust and the resistance of its lateral foreland. The first regime implies transversal (orogen-normal) injection of plateau lower crust into the collision zone as a result of confinement of the plateau by an increasingly stiffer lateral boundary. As a precursor mechanism to channel flow, transversal injection responds to downward thickening of the plateau crust that is forcedly extruded into the orogenic wedge. The second regime is that of collapse-driven lateral escape of the plateau. This regime is established after a threshold is attained in the interplate coupling in the collision zone, which allows the gravity potential of the plateau to overcome the resistance of its lateral boundary. Under the collapse-driven escape regime (orogen parallel), such as that governing Tibet during the last 13 Ma, most of the convergence in the plateau and the top and rear of the collisional wedge is transformed into lateral flow and extension.
ISSN: 0148-0227

hal-01229107
https://hal-univ-rennes1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01229107
https://hal-univ-rennes1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01229107/document
https://hal-univ-rennes1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01229107/file/2015JB012110_revised.pdf
https://hal-univ-rennes1.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01229107/file/SupplementaryMaterial_final.pdf

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
We investigate the timing of end of motion along the South Tibet Detachment System (STDS), a major normal fault system that runs parallel to the Himalayan range for more than 1500 km. Near Dinggye (similar to 28 degrees 10'N, 87 degrees 40'E), the STD dips similar to 10 +/- 5 degrees to the North and separates Paleozoic Tethyan series from Upper Himalayan Crystalline Series (UHCS). Immediately below the STD, the UHCS is highly deformed in the STD shear zone, lineations trend NNE and the shear senses are top to the NE. In micaschist, the P-T path constrained by pseudosection and garnet chemistry, shows successive metamorphic conditions of similar to 0.6 GPa and similar to 550 degrees C and 0.5 GPa and 625 degrees C. U/Pb dating of monazites and zircons in deformed and undeformed leucogranites suggests that ductile deformation lasted until at least similar to 16 Ma but ended prior to similar to 15 Ma in the STD shear zone similar to 100 m below the detachment. Ar/Ar micas ages in the footwall span between similar to 14.6 and 13.6 Ma, indicating rapid cooling down to similar to 320 degrees C, and suggesting persistence of normal faulting, at that time. The STDS is cut and offset by the N-S trending Dinggye active normal fault which initiated prior to 11 Ma thus providing a minimum bound for the end of STDS motion. These data are interpreted as reflecting 0.3 GPa (11 km) to 0.6 GPa (22 km) of exhumation along the STDS starting prior to similar to 16 Ma, ending between 13.6 and 11 Ma. The 1000 km long stretch of the STDS east of the Gurla Mandata probably stopped almost synchronously between 13 and 11 Ma ago, coevally with a sudden switch from NNE-SSW to E-W extension at the top of the accretionary prism, with a jump of the major thrust from the lower Main Central Thrust (MCTI) to the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), and with a change in the India and Asia convergence direction. This synchronism is probably better explained in the frame of a thrust wedge or thrust system model than a lower channel flow model. West of the Gurla Mandata the STDS appears to stop 5 to 3 Ma earlier, possibly related to local interactions with the Karakorum fault in a way that needs to be understood.
ISSN: 0012-821X

hal-00475652
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00475652
DOI : 10.1016/j.epsl.2009.12.035