Abstract
The NW-most corner of Moesia offers the possibility to unravel the structural architecture as well as the kinematic characteristics of a highly-bent contact between an orogenic nappe pile and its foreland plate. The major fault system, dominantly transcurent that accommodated during the Tertiary the displacement and rotation of the Latest Cretaceous Carpathian orogenic wedge around the Moesian corner had originated from a passive margin stage when W-E to WNWESE extensional faulting predated the formation of the Late Jurassic Severin oceanic crust. In the NW-most Moesia, these old structures are cut by an E-W-trending major normal fault system which accommodated the Late Oligocene (?) - Burdigalian dextral movements of the Carpathian units along the Timok lineament. Structural evidence shows that this initially rather straight N-S dextral transfer fault evolved into a curved anastomozed system parallel to the present-day shape of the orogen not earlier than the Middle Miocene. This was at the time when the Carpathian units commenced to rotate around the Moesian corner along the original Timok and one of the major E-W-trending normal faults. Farther ENE- to E-wards displacement of the Carpathian units along the northern margin of the Moesian plate induced an oblique inversion of the Mid-Tertiary extensional basin by peeling-off E-SE-wards its sedimentary fill. Overall, the inversion created a duplex-style system that changes E-wards to a major plan-view wedge bounded by a NW-SE dextral tear fault passing gradually to the thin-skinned Subcarpathian nappe. In this contribution we stress the role of inherited structural weaknesses within the foreland plate in the creation of a transcurent contact.
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Tarapoanca, M., Tambrea, D., Avram, V., Popescu, B. (2007). The Geometry of the South Leading Carpathian Thrust Line and the Moesia Boundary: The Role of Inherited Structures in Establishing a Transcurent Contact on the Concave Side of the Carpathians. In: Lacombe, O., Roure, F., Lavé, J., Vergés, J. (eds) Thrust Belts and Foreland Basins. Frontiers in Earth Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69426-7_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69426-7_19
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