|
Continent-Continent Collision: Himalayan-Alpine Belt |
Department of Geology, University of Florida, 1112 GPA, Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A.
New palaeomagnetic data are consistent with the hypothesis that Adria moved as a promontory of the African Plate during the Mesozoic. This hypothesis is supported by regional facies analysis and by geophysical data from the eastern Mediterranean basins which indicate a continental lithosphere. However, the new data cast doubt upon the concept of a rigid, autochthonous African promontory remaining coherent during Alpine deformation. It is apparent that small-scale relative rotations have occurred during the Tertiary in areas which were previously considered authochtonous. Late-tectonic extensional basins, such as the Tyrrhenian Sea, are superimposed on the continent-continent collision suture and their growth is contemporaneous with thrusting in surrounding arcs. The very rapid evolution of the collision suture into a region of extension is due to a rapid lithospheric thinning process, such as catastrophic delamination of part of the mantle lithosphere. Such delamination would be most likely to occur very soon after a collision involving fast lithospheric thickening.
This article has been cited by other articles:
 |
|
 |
|
  F. Heller, W. Lowrie, and A. M. Hirt A review of palaeomagnetic and magnetic anisotropy results from the Alps Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 1989; 45: 399 - 420. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
