Geodynamic evolution of the Tatra Mts. and the Pieniny Klippen Belt (Western Carpathians): problems and comments

Abstract

The geodynamic evolution of the Pieniny Klippen Belt (PKB) and the Tatra Mts. assumes that: The Oravic-Vahic Basin developed due to Jurassic rifting processes with thinned continental crust. The oblique rift without rift-related volcanism had probably a WSW-ENE course. Late Cretaceous thrust-folding of the Choc, Krízna and High-Tatric nappes took place underwater and at considerable overburden pressure (~6-7 km). The geometry of the structures was strongly disturbed by pressure solution processes leading to considerable mass loss. Nappe-folding in the PKB was connected with the slow and flat subduction of thinned continental crust of the Vahicum-Oravicum under the northern margin of the Central Carpathians Block. In the terminal phase, the northernmost units of the PKB were transported through gravitational sliding, forming numerous olistolites. In the Tatra Mts. and the PKB, the nappe thrust-folding was influenced by a strike-slip shear zone between the edge of the Central Carpathians and the PKB and caused e.g. the counter-clockwise rotation of the Tatra block and relative changing directions of thrusting. The consequence of Miocene oblique subduction and subsequent collision of the North-European continental crust with the Central Carpathian Block was the activation of NNW-SSE deep fault zones. With one of these – the Dunajec Fault – were connected en echelon shears trading on the andesite dykes swarm. Miocene collision caused the disintegration of the Central Carpathian Block into individual massifs and their rotational uplift. The value of rotation around the horizontal axis for the Tatra Massif is estimated at ~40o.