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Back-arc regions are usually punctuated by pulses of tectonic deformation, lasting for few tens of millions of years. Yet, the origin of those short-lived deformation episodes is disputed. Here, we compile structural, stratigraphic, geochemical, and geochronological data from Iran and we combine them with a kinematic reconstruction to show that the back-arc region of the Central Neotethys subduction zone was affected by alternating pulses of extension and compression, linked to episodes of trench retreat and advance, respectively. To back-up these observations and investigate the causes of such a trench behavior, we run 2D numerical models exploring (i) the dynamics of subduction into a viscously stratified mantle, and (ii) the deep slab deformation induced by mineral phase changes at the mantle transition zone. Our results indicate that episodes of trench retreat and trench advance, like those observed in the Central Neotethys domain, emerge spontaneously by slab folding, and penetration into the mantle transition zone. We propose a coupled mantle-surface tectonic evolution model of the Central Neotethys slab that reconciles back-arc deformation and short-lived pulses of upper-plate vertical motion in a unique, dynamically self-consistent model of deep mantle subduction.

A better understanding of intraplate deformation requires the knowledge of the space–time scales involved in its development and to decipher possible links with the dynamic evolution of the plate boundaries. Central Iran provides an ideal test site to approach this scientific issue, since it is characterised by a prolonged history of Mesozoic–Cenozoic intraplate deformation that has been interfering with the spatio-temporal re-organization of the Zagros convergence zone along the Eurasia plate boundary. This study focus on the Doruneh Fault (DF) region that is considered as the northern mechanical boundary of the Central East Iranian Microcontinent. By combining field investigations with apatite low-temperature thermochronology, we present a revised tectono-stratigraphic scenario for the DF region, typified by a punctuated history of fault-related exhumation, burial and cooling history back to the Upper Cretaceous. When framed at regional scale, these results attest that the Zagros convergence zone, and its hinterland domain were fully mechanically coupled since ca. 40–35 Ma, a time lapse that is here referred as to the onset of continental collision along the Arabia–Eurasia plate boundary. In this scenario, the DF region operated throughout the Cenozoic as a major zone of residual stress accommodation and transfer in the hinterland domain of the Zagros convergence zone. Results of this study also suggest that the tectonic evolution along the Arabia–Eurasia plate boundary was modulated by the plate-boundary dynamics and by the modes of tectonic reactivation of the intracontinental weak zones of Central Iran and at its tectonic boundaries.

Recent works documented Neogene to Quaternary dextral strike-slip tectonics along the Kuh-e-Sarhangi and Kuh-e-Faghan intraplate strike-slip faults at the northern edge of the Lut Block of Central Iran, previously thought to be dominated by sinistral strike-slip deformation. This work focuses on the evidence of Quaternary activity of one of these fault systems, in order to provide new spatiotemporal constraints on their role in the active regional kinematic scenario. Through geomorphological and structural investigation, integrated with optically stimulated luminescence dating of three generations of alluvial fans and fluvial terraces (at ~53, ~25, and ~6 ka), this study documents (i) the topographic inheritance of the long-term (Myr) punctuated history of fault nucleation, propagation, and exhumation along the northern edge of Lut Block; (ii) the tectonic control on drainage network evolution, pediment formation, fluvial terraces, and alluvial fan architecture; (iii) the minimum Holocene age of Quaternary dextral strike-slip faulting; and (iv) the evidence of Late Quaternary fault-related uplift localized along the different fault strands. The documented spatial and temporal constraints on the active dextral strike-slip tectonics at the northern edge of Lut Block provide new insights on the kinematic model for active faulting in Central Iran, which has been reinterpreted in an escape tectonic scenario.

Since the first discovery of ultrahigh pressure (UHP) rocks 30 years ago in the Western Alps, the mechanisms for exhumation of (U)HP terranes worldwide are still debated. In the western Mediterranean, the presently accepted model of synconvergent exhumation (e.g., the channel-flow model) is in conflict with parts of the geologic record. We synthesize regional geologic data and present alternative exhumation mechanisms that consider the role of divergence within subduction zones. These mechanisms, i.e., (i) the motion of the upper plate away from the trench and (ii) the rollback of the lower plate, are discussed in detail with particular reference to the Cenozoic Adria-Europe plate boundary, and along three different transects (Western Alps, Calabria-Sardinia, and Corsica-Northern Apennines). In the Western Alps, (U)HP rocks were exhumed from the greatest depth at the rear of the accretionary wedge during motion of the upper plate away from the trench. Exhumation was extremely fast, and associated with very low geothermal gradients. In Calabria, HP rocks were exhumed from shallower depths and at lower rates during rollback of the Adriatic plate, with repeated exhumation pulses progressively younging toward the foreland. Both mechanisms were active to create boundary divergence along the Corsica-Northern Apennines transect, where European southeastward subduction was progressively replaced along strike by Adriatic northwestward subduction. The tectonic scenario depicted for the Western Alps trench during Eocene exhumation of (U)HP rocks correlates well with present-day eastern Papua New Guinea, which is presented as a modern analog of the Paleogene Adria-Europe plate boundary.

The Neogene extensional province of southern Tuscany in central Italy provides an outstanding example of fossil and active structurally controlled fluid flow and epithermal ore mineralization associated with post-orogenic silicic magmatism. Characterization of the hydrodynamic regime leading to the genesis of the polysulphide deposit (known as Filone di Boccheggiano) hosted within the damage zone of the Boccheggiano Fault is a key target to assess modes of fossil hydrothermal fluid circulation in the region and, more generally, to provide inferences on fault-controlled hydrothermal fluid flow in extensional settings. We provide a detailed description of the fault zone architecture and alteration/mineralization associated with the Boccheggiano ore deposit and report the results of fluid inclusion and stable oxygen isotope studies. This investigation shows that the Boccheggiano ore consists of an adularia/illite-type epithermal deposit and that sulphide ore deposition was controlled by channelling of hydrothermal fluids of dominantly meteoric origin within the highly anisotropic permeability structure of the Boccheggiano Fault. The low permeability structure of the fault core compartmentalized the fluid outflow preventing substantial cross-fault flow, with focused fluid flow occurring at the hangingwall of the fault controlled by fracture permeability. Fluid inclusion characteristics indicate that ore minerals were deposited between 280° and 350°C in the upper levels of the brittle extending crust (lithostatic pressure in the order of 0.1 GPa). Abundant vapour-rich inclusions in ore-stage quartz are consistent with fluid immiscibility and boiling, and quartz ore vein textures suggest that mineralization in the Boccheggiano ore deposit occurred during cyclic fluid flow in a deformation regime regulated by transient and fluctuating fluid pressure conditions. Results from this study (i) predict a strongly anisotropic permeability structure of the fault damage zone during crustal extension, and (ii) indicate the rate of secondary (structural) permeability creation and maintenance by active deformation in the hangingwall of extensional faults as the major factor leading to effective hydraulic transmissivity in extensional terranes. These features intimately link ore-grade mineralization in extensional settings to telescoping of hydrothermal flow along the hangingwall block(s) of major extensional fault zones.

30-35 Ma ago a major change occurred in the Mediterranean region, from a regionally compressional subduction coeval with the formation of Alpine mountain belts, to extensional subduction and backarc rifting. Backarc extension was accompanied by gravitational spreading of the mountain belts formed before this Oligocene revolution. Syn-rift basins formed during this process above detachments and low-angle normal faults. Parameters that control the formation and the kinematics of such flat-lying detachments are still poorly understood. From the Aegean Sea to the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Alboran Sea, we have analysed onshore the deformation and P-T-t evolution of the ductile crust exhumed by extension, and the transition from ductile to brittle conditions as well as the relations between deep deformation and basin formation. We show that the sense of shear along crustal-scale detachments is toward the trench when subduction proceeds with little or no convergence (northern Tyrrhenian and Alboran after 20 Ma) and away from the trench in the case of true convergence (Aegean). We tentatively propose a scheme explaining how interactions between the subducting slab and the mantle control the basal shear below the upper plate and the geometry and distribution of detachments and associated sedimentary basins. We propose that ablative subduction below the Aegean is responsible for the observed kinematics on detachments (i.e. away from the trench). The example of the Betic Cordillera and the Rif orogen, where the directions of stretching were different in the lower and the upper crust and changed through time, is also discussed following this hypothesis.

The Uluguru Mountains of eastern Tanzania represent a key area to unravel the tectonic history of Gondwana assembly along the Neoproterozoic East African Orogen. On the basis of combined structural and 40Ar/39Ar geochronological investigations, we have re-interpreted the structural architecture of the region. Texturally-late, ductile to cataclastic low-angle tectonic contacts are recognized, which delimit the contacts between the main lithological units that form a post-metamorphic, NW-verging nappe stack. 40Ar/39Ar geochronology places this nappe-forming event at c. 550 Ma, post-dating tonalitic dyke emplacement at c. 580 Ma. Results from this study (i) demonstrate that a distinct and later episode of convergence occurred in the region at c. 55 Ma, when previous structural elements of the East African Orogen were finally juxtaposed; and (ii) extends models involving the polyphase assembly of Gondwana to East Africa. © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

This work presents the results of a multidiscipinary study carried out in the southern branch of the Larderello geothermal field (Travale–Montieri area), which was based on the integration of field data with information on the deeper structures as derived from interpretation of seismic reflection profiles and the P – T – t history of the metamorphic substratum as reconstructed from borehole data. Our data document that the structural and metamorphic signature of the metamorphic substratum is chiefly related to a prograde HT–LP metamorphic overprint, ranging in age from c . 2.8 to 0.7 Ma. The metamorphic climax was attained within the K-feldspar zone and equilibrated at P – T conditions of about 0.2 GPa and 650 °C. We interpret these new findings as evidence of Pliocene–Pleistocene thermal metamorphism associated with multiple granite intrusions at shallow levels in the crust. These results (1) add strength to the interpretations emphasizing the contribution of Neogene thermal metamorphism to the tectonometamorphic signature of the basement rocks found at depth in the Larderello geothermal field, and (2) provide insights on the thermal structures of the crustal section hosting the geothermal field and on the modes through which the long-lived positive thermal anomaly operated in southern Tuscany.

International audience; Central Iran provides an ideal region in which to study the long-term morphotectonic response to the nucleation and propagation of intraplate faulting. In this study, a multidisciplinary approach that inte-grates structural and stratigraphic field investigations with apatite (U + Th)/He (AHe) thermochronometry is used to reconstruct the spatio-temporal evolution of the Kuh-e-Faghan Fault in northeastern central Iran. The Kuh-e-Faghan Fault is a narrow, similar to 80-km-long, deformation zone that consists of three main broadly left-stepping, E-W-trending, dextral fault strands that cut through the Mesozoic-Paleozoic substratum and the Neogene-Quaternary sedimentary cover. The AHe thermochronometry results indicate that the intrafault blocks along the Kuh-e-Faghan Fault experienced two major episodes of fault-related exhumation at ca. 18 Ma and ca. 4 Ma. The ca. 18 Ma faulting/exhumation episode is chiefly recorded by the structure and depositional architecture of the Neogene deposits along the Kuh-eFaghan Fault. A source-to-sink scenario can be reconstructed for this time frame, where topographic growth caused the synchronous erosion/exhumation of the pre-Neogene units and deposition of the eroded material in the surrounding fault-bounded continental depo-centers. Successively, the Kuh-eFaghan Fault gradually entered a period of relative tectonic quiescence and, probably, of regional subsidence, during which a thick pile of fine-grained onlapping sediments was deposited. This may have caused resetting of the He ages of apatite in the pre-Neogene and the basal Neogene successions. The ca. 4 Ma faulting episode caused the final exhumation of the fault system, resulting in the current fault zone and topography. The two faultrelated exhumation episodes fit with regional early Miocene collision-enhanced uplift/exhumation, and the late Miocene-early Pliocene widespread tectonic reorganization of the Iranian Plateau. The reconstructed longterm, spatially and temporally punctuated fault system evolution in intraplate central Iran during Neogene-Quaternary times may reflect states of far-field stress changes at the collisional boundaries.

Cumulative, polymodal normal (Gaussian distribution) statistics was applied to subsidiary fault data collected from damage zones associated with the Cenozoic Lanterman and Priestley intraplate right-lateral strike-slip fault systems in North Victoria Land, Antarctica. Results show that five Gaussian peaks out of seven in the Lanterman Fault and five out of nine in the Priestley Fault have almost coincident azimuthal values. We named these Gaussian peak pairs as consistent fault sets , arranged in a consistent kinematic architecture that is compatible with the Cenozoic regional strike-slip environment. Angular and kinematic relationships among subsidiary fault sets within the consistent kinematic architecture provide constraints for the inference of the state of stress along the Lanterman and Priestley fault systems. We interpret the fault pattern of the consistent kinematic architecture to be produced by early localisation of the principal displacement zone along pre-existing mechanical discontinuities inherited from the Early Paleozoic Ross Orogeny. Shear localisation was followed by subsidiary faulting at an angle to the principal displacement zone according to the Mohr–Coulomb–Byerlee failure criterion.

An integrated structural, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) and paleomagnetic study was carried out on Plio-Pleistocene sedimentary basins in eastern Sicily. These basins belong to three main tectonic domains: the Tyrrhenian hinterland domain, the Catania foredeep domain, and the Hyblean foreland domain. We sampled 329 oriented samples from 25 sites in selected areas from the different tectonic domains. The AMS is typical for weakly deformed sediments, with a magnetic foliation sub-parallel to the bedding plane, and a well-defined magnetic lineation. The orientation of the magnetic lineation is strongly controlled by the main tectonic deformation recorded in the basins. Structural and AMS data define a transition from NW–SE extension in the Tyrrhenian hinterland domain, to E–W compression in the Catania foredeep domain, to E–W extension in the Hyblean foreland domain, respectively. Reliable paleomagnetic results have been obtained in 12 out of 25 sampled sites. Data show that no significant rotations occurred in any of the studied basins at least since the middle Pleistocene. These results allow us to define an upper limit to the large rotations about vertical axes that have been previously found in the Calabria and Sicily regions.

Mt. Overlord and Mt. Melbourne are part of the fossil-to-active eruptive centre belt of the McMurdo Volcanic Group, located along the western shoulder of the West Antarctic Rift System in north Victoria Land (Antarctica). The formation and localisation of these volcanic centres are intimately connected to the regional fault patterns associated with Neogene transtensional stretching in the West Antarctic Rift System. This study reports about 900 structural data of faults and fault-related joints affecting the Miocene–Pliocene deposits of Mt. Overlord and the Plio-Quaternary deposits of Mt. Melbourne. Fault surfaces strike along three main directions (NW–SE, NE–SW, and N–S) with high (> 70°) dip angles. The reconstructed fault geometries and kinematics document a NW–SE strike-slip fault system having dextral motion in the Mt. Overlord area, which evolves into a more complex structural architecture characterised by transtensional deformations in the Mt. Melbourne area, where volcanism is still active. The fault array can be reconciled with principal and subordinate deformation structures developed at the termination region of NW–SE intraplate strike-slip fault systems inducing oblique rifting in the West Antarctic Rift System. The structural dataset, integrated with available geochronological constraints, gives rise to a two-step (Miocene-to-Holocene) tectonic scenario in which the spatial migration of the volcanic activity towards the eastern boundary of the Transantarctic Mountains occurred during the evolution of the West Antarctic Rift System.

The Lanterman Fault is one of the subvertical, NW–SE-striking intraplate shear zones that bound the major Proterozoic to Early Palaeozoic tectono-metamorphic blocks constituting north Victoria Land, Antarctica. This fault zone, several kilometres wide and with an onshore along strike length of about 400 km from the Southern Ocean to the Ross Sea, records almost entirely brittle deformation, producing complex, NW–SE- to north–south-trending, anastomosing dextral fault strands. Brittle faulting is subparallel to the regional subvertical schistosity, indicating that it was superimposed in a broad region that has earlier experienced ductile-dominated deformation. The regional-scale brittle deformation fits into a general kinematic model involving progressive NW–SE dextral simple shear. Two major onshore age constraints exist for brittle faulting along the Lanterman Fault system: (i) involvement of Triassic Beacon and Jurassic Ferrar rocks in faulting; and (ii) the intimate link between right-lateral faulting and Cenozoic magmatism along the southern onshore termination of the fault. We infer that final terrane assembly in northern Victoria Land was the response to late-stage (Cenozoic) right-lateral movements along NW–SE inherited structures, rather than being the result of accretion during the Early Palaeozoic Ross Orogeny.

We report on structural and anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) results from the Upper Miocene sediments of the Amantea basin, located on the Tyrrhenian coast of the Calabrian Arc (Southern Italy). The stratigraphic succession of the basin is organized in three depositional sequences, separated by two major angular unconformities. Detailed geological mapping and structural analysis demonstrate that the stratigraphic evolution of the Amantea basin is strongly controlled by a synsedimentary extensional tectonic regime. Several NNE-SSW-trending normal fault arrays with large scatter in inclination values have been interpreted as due to a domino faulting mechanism, consistent with a WNW-ESE stretching direction. AMS data have been obtained for 13 sites, both in the not constrained in age first depositional sequence (3 sites), and in the upper Tortonian-lower Messinian clays from the second depositional sequence (10 sites). All the sites show a strong magnetic foliation parallel to the bedding planes, and a well defined magnetic lineation subparallel to the local bedding dip directions. The magnetic lineations cluster around a WNW-ESE trend and are parallel to the stretching directions inferred by fault-slip analysis and basin architecture. These new data then confirm the possibility to use the magnetic lineation to map the strain trajectory in weakly deformed extensional sedimentary basins. Paleomagnetic data (from previous studies) show that the whole Calabrian block underwent a 15°–20° clockwise rotation probably in the Pleistocene, postdating the extensional tectonic events which controlled the Amantea basin geometry. Therefore we suggest for the Amantea basin an original E-W-oriented stretching direction, which may be considered as the older extensional direction characterizing the Late Miocene evolution of the southern Tyrrhenian Sea domain.

Late Cenozoic strike-slip tectonics and active faulting in Central Iran have been extensively described in the last decades. This study presents results of integrated structural and geomorphological analyses along the Kuh-e-Sarhangi Fault, a major NE-SW striking brittle deformation zone that cuts across the basement and Neogene-Quaternary cover successions at the north-western edge of the Lut Block. Structural investigations document post-Neogene NE-SW dextral transpressive tectonics and geomorphic evidence support a Late Quaternary age for the faulted alluvial fan deposits along the bedrock range fronts. Northward, the nearly parallel Great Kavir (Doruneh) Fault is known to have active left-lateral strike-slip kinematics, and its easternmost segment was considered as the northern margin of the Lut Block. The new findings impose reconsideration of the current regional kinematic models, with implications on the seismogenic fault networks of Central Iran. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Alpine orogens in the central Mediterranean region have revealed the concomitance of crustal extension in back-arc domain and crustal shortening in frontal domain. Quantitative data of deformation in the frontal orogenic wedges are necessary to understand how the shortening-extension pair evolves in terms of structures, orogenic transport, timing, and exhumation rate. This paper deals with kinematics and ages of the frontal thrust systems of the Calabria-Peloritani Arc (Italy) exposed in the eastern Sila Massif. We first present structural fieldwork, onshore and offshore well log data, and new apatite fission-track (AFT) thermochronology. Then, we describe the structural architecture of the studied area as an ENE-verging stacking of thrust sheets involving basement units and syn-orogenic sediments. The AFT study documents that thrust sheets entered the partial annealing zone from 18. Ma to 13. Ma. This Early-Middle Miocene thrusting phase was coeval with exhumation of high-pressure/low temperature metamorphic rocks in the hinterland of the orogen (Coastal Chain area), mainly driven by top-to-the-W extensional tectonics. Opposite kinematic shear senses (contractional top-to-the-E and extensional top-to-the-W) and different exhumation rates (slow in the frontal, more rapid in the hinterland) are framed in a tectonic scenario of a critically tapered orogenic wedge during the eastward retreating of the Apennine slab. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Geological mapping coupled with structural investigations carried out in the Voltri Massif (eastern Ligurian Alps, Italy) provide new data for the interpretation of the tectonic context controlling main fabric development during exhumation of its high-pressure core. The Voltri Massif is here interpreted as a c. 30 km-long eclogite-bearing, asymmetric dome formed by the progressive verticalisation of the regional, second-phase mylonitic foliation developed during retrogressive greenschist metamorphic conditions. In this light, the exhumation history is driven by a ductile-to-brittle extensional process, operating through low-angle, top-to-the-W multiple detachment systems. A Late Eocene-Early Oligocene age for this extensional episode is proposed on the basis of structural correlations, stratigraphic and radiometric constraints. In this scenario, the Voltri Massif is interpreted as an extensional domain developed to accommodate the Late Eocene-Early Oligocene arching of the Western Alps-Northern Apennines orogenic system. © Springer-Verlag 2008.

The controversial relationship between the orogenic segments of the Western Alps and the Northern Apennines is here explored integrating recently published 3D tomographic models of subduction with new and re-interpreted geological observations from the eclogitic domain of the Voltri Massif (Ligurian Alps, Italy), where the two belts joint each other. The Voltri Massif is here described as an extensional domain accommodating the opposing outward migration of the Alpine and Apennine thrust fronts, since about 30-35 Ma. Using tomographic images of the upper mantle and paleotectonic reconstructions, we propose that this extensional setting represents the surface manifestation of an along strike change in polarity of the subducted oceanic slab whose polarity changed laterally in space and in time. Our tectonic model suggests that the westward shift of the Alpine thrust front from the Oligocene onward was the consequence of the toroidal asthenospheric flow induced by the retreat of the Apenninic slab. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[1] In this paper, new paleomagnetic results from the Calabrian Arc are presented, together with a critical review of all paleomagnetic data collected in the last decades in southern Italy. Our study is focused on the upper Miocene to middle Pleistocene deposits of the Crati extensional basin, a sector of the arc where an abrupt change in the sense of paleomagnetic rotations is observed. Paleomagnetic data indicate that the Crati basin underwent a uniform clockwise (CW) rotation of about 15–20 in its central and southern part, whereas the northern sector is organized in small-scale fault-bounded blocks, which rotated independently. We interpret this pattern of deformation as the evidence of the complex nature of this area, which represents the boundary between two domains characterized by opposite rotations: the southern Apennines, which rotated counterclockwise, and the Calabria and Sicily, which rotated CW. Integrating these new paleomagnetic data with paleomagnetic data from southern Italy, we reconstruct the history of paleomagnetic rotations through time. Paleomagnetic rotations highlight the peculiarity of the formation of the Calabrian Arc curvature and imply that either an oroclinal bending model or a progressive arc model cannot be simply applied to the Calabrian Arc formation. We describe a realistic tectonic-geodynamic model, where the progressive curvature of the Calabrian Arc is framed within the space-time evolution of the Ionian subduction system.

An integrated structural and paleomagnetic study was carried out on Neogene- Quaternary clastic sedimentary sequences exposed in north Calabria to defi ne the brittle postorogenic evolution of the inner sector of the Calabrian arc. The structural, mineralogical, and magnetic fabric data presented in this paper suggest that the postorogenic basins of north Calabria originated and developed under an extensional tectonic regime that has been active since the middle Miocene. Results were used to defi ne the spatial and temporal evolution of the extensional fault systems in the framework of extensional processes active in the backarc region of the southeastward-migrating Apennine subduction system. Our data indicate that regional backarc extension operated in the brittle crust, and the data trace a continuous evolution from low- to high-angle extensional faulting. Paleomagnetic data show that this continuous extensional process was accompanied by complex interactions among faultbounded crustal blocks. In fact, the extensional domain is subdivided into different structural compartments, separated by the adjustment in the fault strike imposed by the regional rotation pattern.

The polymetamorphic Alpujarride nappe Complex is one of the main constituents of the internal zones of the Alpine Betic–Rif chain. Still under debate are the tectonic processes involved in exhumation of its deep-seated portions, metamorphosed under high-pressure conditions during the Alpine crustal thickening. A systematic study of the exhumation-related ductile and brittle fabric observed in the different Alpujarride units reveals, independently from the metamorphic grade and age of the protoliths, a common sequence of deformation events. It involves early progressive top-to-the-N/NE ductile shearing, followed by a major top-to-the-N post-metamorphic extensional faulting event, which produced a complex re-organisation of the whole nappe pile. We propose that ductile exhumation of the deep-seated Alpujarride nappe piles was mainly completed before the onset of the post-orogenic extensional processes associated with the Early Miocene Alboran rifting. A switch from an early ductile underthrusting regime (Paleogene in age) to semibrittle-to-brittle extension (Early Miocene onward) is here proposed as responsible for the exhumation history of the Alpujarride Complex.

[1] The western Mediterranean subduction zone (WMSZ) extends from the northern Apennine to southern Spain and turns around forming the narrow and tight Calabrian and Gibraltar Arcs. The evolution of the WMSZ is characterized by a first phase of orogenic wedging followed, from 30 Ma on, by trench retreat and back-arc extension. Combining new and previous geological data, new tomographic images of the western Mediterranean mantle, and plate kinematics, we describe the evolution of the WMSZ during the last 35 Myr. Our reconstruction shows that the two arcs form by fragmentation of the 1500 km long WMSZ in small, narrow slabs. Once formed, these two narrow slabs retreat outward, producing back-arc extension and large scale rotation of the flanks, shaping the arcs. The Gibraltar Arc first formed during the middle Miocene, while the Calabrian Arc formed later, during the late Miocene-Pliocene. Despite the different paleogeographic settings, the mechanism of rupture and backward migration of the narrow slabs presents similarities on both sides of the western Mediterranean, suggesting that the slab deformation is also driven by lateral mantle flow that is particularly efficient in a restricted (upper mantle) style of mantle convection.

The nappe-structured belt of Calabria constitutes the eastward termination of the southern branch of the Alpine Mediterranean belt that delimits the northern edge of the Africa plate. Contrasting hypotheses for the origin and tectonic significance of the north Calabrian nappe edifice have been proposed, and kinematic data from north Calabria have been used to support different interpretations of the Alps-Apennines linkage and the polarity of the Tethyan subduction in the Apennine region. We reconstruct the architecture of the north Calabria nappe edifice through a multidisciplinary approach which integrates structural investigations with metamorphic thermobarometry and 40Ar/39 Ar geochronology. Results from this study indicate that north Calabria consists of a Tertiary nappe stack, resulting from superimposed top-to-the-west extensional shearing (late Oligocene to middle Miocene in age) onto a previously structured top-to-the-east compressional belt (Eocene to Oligocene in age). This study also documents that the top-to-the-west extensional tectonics was achieved by means of regionally sized extensional detachment fault systems, stretching apart and translating as allochthonous fragments the previously accreted units. Thinning operated by top-to-the-west extensional detachment tectonics also resulted in the direct juxtaposition of non-Alpine or slightly Alpine metamorphosed units (upper plate complex) onto the previously exhumed deep-seated portions of the orogenic wedge, metamorphosed under blueschist facies metamorphic conditions (lower plate complex). These findings support a new tectonic scenario for the orogenic history of north Calabria, which may be adequately framed within the Tertiary Apennine-Tyrrhenian system evolution. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.

We present the results of field investigations carried out at the southern termination of the Priestley Fault, a major Cenozoic right-lateral strike-slip fault system in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. The Priestley Fault was originally traced from offshore seismic profiles. Its onshore prosecution was inferred from the regional geological picture. Our work provides the first robust dataset on the kinematics and structural architecture of the Priestley Fault. The fault system includes a principal displacement zone (PDZ), where most horizontal displacement is accounted for, and a transtensional splay zone (TSZ) in the southern side consisting of a major basin at the fault tip, the Terror Rift, and minor ones paralleling it cratonward. Part of the strike-slip displacement is transferred by fault splaying from the principal displacement zone to the basin-boundary faults in the transtensional splay zone. The principal displacement zone is characterised by strongly transpressive deformation and this contrasts with the extensional component occurring in the transtensional splay zone. Such a contrast is only apparent because the two regions are kinematically linked. Transfer of the residual right-lateral strike-slip displacement from the tip region of the principal displacement zone to the basin-boundary fault systems of the Terror Rift represents the most effective displacement compensation mechanism at the termination of the Priestley Fault. It provides an additional solution for reducing the well known and still fully unsolved discrepancy between large translations of adjacent crustal blocks and the lack of comparable displacement values in their boundary strike-slip fault systems. The unquestionable evidence of intense Cenozoic brittle deformations in north Victoria Land imposes a re-examination of the regional tectonic framework, commonly interpreted as the mere result of the Early Paleozoic Ross Orogeny.

SUMMARY Geological and geophysical constraints to reconstruct the evolution of the Central Mediterranean subduction zone are presented. Geological observations such as upper plate stratigraphy, HP–LT metamorphic assemblages, foredeep/trench stratigraphy, arc volcanism and the back-arc extension process are used to define the infant stage of the subduction zone and its latest, back-arc phase. Based on this data set, the time dependence of the amount of subducted material in comparison with the tomographic images of the upper mantle along two cross-sections from the northern Apennines and from Calabria to the Gulf of Lyon can be derived. Further, the reconstruction is used to unravel the main evolutionary trends of the subduction process. Results of this analysis indicate that (1) subduction in the Central Mediterranean is as old as 80 Myr, (2) the slab descended slowly into the mantle during the first 20–30 Myr (subduction speeds were probably less than 1 cm year x1 ), (3) subduction accelerated afterwards, producing arc volcanism and back-arc extension and (4) the slab reached the 660 km transition zone after 60–70 Myr. This time-dependent scenario, where a slow initiation is followed by a roughly exponential increase in the subduction speed, can be modelled by equating the viscous dissipation per unit length due to the bending of oceanic lithosphere to the rate of change of potential energy by slab pull. Finally, the third stage is controlled by the interaction between the slab and the 660 km transition zone. In the southern region, this results in an important re-shaping of the slab and intermittent pulses of back-arc extension. In the northern region, the decrease in the trench retreat can be explained by the entrance of light continental material at the trench.

Combined structural and petrographical investigations, coupled with 40Ar/39Ar geochronology, were carried out in the Sila Piccola Massif of the Calabrian Arc in order to define the structural geometry and map out the major structural and metamorphic breaks within the exposed nappe sequence. On the basis of the contrasting Alpine pressure-temperature (P-T) and structural signatures the nappe stack can be divided in two major tectonic complexes, bounded by a flat-lying ductile to brittle extensional shear zone. The upper complex consists of a nappe-like structure, where a major top to the east compressional shear is recorded. The lower tectonic complex consists of an ophiolite-bearing sequence showing typical high-P/low-T parageneses (Mg-carpholite and Na-amphibole). The 40Ar/39Ar geochronology on phengites in equilibrium with blueschist minerals provided a minimum age estimate for the blueschist event in the lower complex rocks at the Oligocene-Eocene boundary (around 35 Ma). Ductile to brittle top to the west extensional shear accompanied the nearly isothermal retrogression and exhumation of the lower complex rocks, reworking the previous nappe contacts with shear localization along the upper/lower tectonic complex discontinuity. The 40Ar/39Ar dating indicates that this postnappe stacking tectonic evolution took place from 30 Ma onward. It is proposed that exhumation of the deep-seated rocks occurred below a top to the west extensional detachment active during convergence and orogenic complex formation (synorogenic extension). The age of this detachment is bracketed between 30 Ma and the post-orogenic Neogene basin sedimentation (middle-upper Miocene). The revised structural and metamorphic scenario is here integrated into a new tectonic evolutionary reconstruction, which involves an early high-P/low-T top to the east crustal thickening episode during the construction of the Apennine orogenic wedge (Eocene-Oligocene), followed and overprinted by a top to the west extensional shear, probably active from the late Oligocene.

Metamorphic core complexes of the Aegean region have revealed midcrustal, shallow-dipping extensional shear zones. These shear zones display constant kinematic indicators over large regions (100–200 km). We analyze the example of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea and then compare it to the Aegean region. We first summarize our observations on ductile extension and metamorphic evolution in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea from Alpine Corsica to Tuscany. (1) Extension migrated from west to east from the early Miocene in Corsica to the Recent in the Apennines; (2) Extension is accommodated by shallow east dipping extensional shear zones at the depth of the brittle-ductile transition, from the early Miocene to the Pliocene. (3) West dipping normal faults accommodate extension on the eastern side of the volcanic arc. (4) Extension is preceded along the convergence front by the formation of a thrust wedge, where high-pressure and low-temperature conditions are recorded; maximum PT conditions decrease toward the east, and PT paths are systematically very cold, suggesting that a large part of the exhumation occurred during synorogenic extension. We discuss the possible mechanisms that account for constant shear sense over large domains. The model involves retreat of the slab and migration of the volcanic arc. Partially molten lower crust acts as a low strength zone where extensional strain is localized. Eastward motion of the upper mantle as a consequence of the migration of the slab induced a component of shear toward the volcanic arc at the base of the stronger upper crust. In the weak upper mantle and lower crust, to the west of the volcanic arc, extensional stresses are not transmitted; this produces a top-to-the-east sense of shear at the base of the upper crust that migrates eastward, following arc migration.