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The present work examines the lithological, structural, geochemical and geochronological records from the Klippen Belt located in the southern Vosges Mountains (NE France). The Klippen Belt is represented by discontinuous exposures of serpentinized harzburgite, ophicalcite, gabbro, gneiss and polymictic conglomerate overlain by deep marine pelitic sediments. Structural data and Bouguer anomalies reveal that the Klippen Belt coincides with a significant discontinuity now occupied by a granitic ridge. Gabbro geochemistry indicates a MOR-type affinity similar to recent slow-spreading ridges, but positive Ba, Sr, Th or U anomalies do not exclude the influence of fluids expelled from a subduction zone. A Sm-Nd isochron age of 372 ± 18 Ma is thought to reflect gabbro emplacement from a highly depleted mantle source (ε = +11.3), and U-Pb zircon ages from a gneiss sample indicate that the basement found in the Klippen has a Neoproterozoic origin. Combined data indicate the formation of a deep basin during Late Devonian rifting. The Klippen lithologies could testify for the presence of an ocean-continent transition environment subsequently inverted during the Early Carboniferous. Basin inversion during the Middle Visean was probably controlled by rift-related structures, and resulted in folding of the sedimentary successions as well as exhumation along thrust zones of deep parts of the basin represented by the Klippen Belt. Based on correlations with the neighbouring Variscan massifs, it is proposed that the southern Vosges sequences represent a back-arc basin related to the North-directed subduction of the southern Palaeotethys Ocean. This geodynamic reconstruction is tentatively correlated with similar ophiolitic remnants in the northern part of the French Massif Central (Brévenne) and with the evolution of the southern Black Forest. The Late Devonian ophiolites are interpreted as relicts of small back-arc marginal basins developed during general closure of the Palaeozoic subduction systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]