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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2009; v. 324; p. 125-140;
DOI: 10.1144/SP324.10
© 2009 Geological Society of London

Part II: Applied thermochronology - long-term evolution studies

Pebble population dating as an additional tool for provenance studies - examples from the Eastern Alps

I. Dunkl1,*, W. Frisch2, J. Kuhlemann2 & A. Brügel2

1 Sedimentology, Geoscience Centre of University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, Göttingen, D-37077, Germany
2 Institute of Geology, University of Tübingen, Sigwartstrasse 10, Tübingen, D-72076, Germany

* Corresponding author (e-mail: istvan.dunkl{at}geo.uni-goettingen.de)

Detrital fission-track (FT) dating can be successfully used in provenance studies of siliciclastic sediments to define the characteristic cooling ages of the source regions during erosion and sedimentation. In order to obtain more specific information about potential source regions we have developed the pebble population dating (PPD) method in which pebbles of specific lithotype are merged and dated. Dating of both zircon and apatite crystals from such pebble populations yields age distributions, which reflect the cooling ages of the given lithotype in the source area at the time of sedimentation. By this technique it is possible to define ‘FT litho-terrains’ in the source regions and thus outline palaeogeological maps.

Two examples are presented from the Eastern Alps. (i) Comparison of FT ages from a sandstone sample and a gneiss PPD sample from an Oligocene conglomerate of the Molasse Basin shows that the youngest age cluster is present only in the sand fraction and derived from the Oligocene volcanic activity along the Periadriatic zone. The lack of the youngest ages in the gneiss pebble assemblage excludes the Oligocene exhumation of the crystalline basement from mid-crustal level. (ii) Pebble assemblages of red Bunter sandstone, gneiss and quartzite were collected from an Upper Miocene conglomerate of the Molasse Foreland Basin and merged as PPD samples. Apatite and zircon FT grain age distributions of these PPD samples, representing the largest ancient East Alpine catchment, allow generating a new combination of palaeogeological and palaeo-FT-age maps of the Eastern Alps for the Late Miocene.





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F. Lisker, B. Ventura, and U. A. Glasmacher
Apatite thermochronology in modern geology
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 2009; 324: 1 - 23.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]