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Cenozoic granitoids in the Dinarides of southern Serbia: age of intrusion, isotope geochemistry, exhumation history and significance for the geodynamic evolution of the Balkan Peninsula

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Abstract

Two age groups were determined for the Cenozoic granitoids in the Dinarides of southern Serbia by high-precision single grain U–Pb dating of thermally annealed and chemically abraded zircons: (1) Oligocene ages (Kopaonik, Drenje, Željin) ranging from 31.7 to 30.6 Ma (2) Miocene ages (Golija and Polumir) at 20.58–20.17 and 18.06–17.74 Ma, respectively. Apatite fission-track central ages, modelling combined with zircon central ages and additionally, local structural observations constrain the subsequent exhumation history of the magmatic rocks. They indicate rapid cooling from above 300°C to ca. 80°C between 16 and 10 Ma for both age groups, induced by extensional exhumation of the plutons located in the footwall of core complexes. Hence, Miocene magmatism and core-complex formation not only affected the Pannonian basin but also a part of the mountainous areas of the internal Dinarides. Based on an extensive set of existing age data combined with our own analyses, we propose a geodynamical model for the Balkan Peninsula: The Late Eocene to Oligocene magmatism, which affects the Adria-derived lower plate units of the internal Dinarides, was caused by delamination of the Adriatic mantle from the overlying crust, associated with post-collisional convergence that propagated outward into the external Dinarides. Miocene magmatism, on the other hand, is associated with core-complex formation along the southern margin of the Pannonian basin, probably associated with the W-directed subduction of the European lithosphere beneath the Carpathians and interfering with ongoing Dinaridic–Hellenic back-arc extension.

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Acknowledgments

We thank B. Schoene for his help with sample preparation and mass spectrometry. K. Ustaszewski gave valuable input to the regional geological discussion. Yet unpublished radiometric ages were made available by the courtesy of D. Prelević. This manuscript greatly benefited from the comments and suggestions by D. Bernoulli. Very thorough and constructive revisions by C. B. Burchfiel and A. von Quadt are highly appreciated. S. Schefer thanks the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft Basel for supporting him and his family during the final stage of his PhD thesis. This project was financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Project No. 200020-109278 granted to S. M. Schmid, B. Fügenschuh, and S. Schefer.

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  1. Stefan M. Schmid

    Present address: Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften, FU Berlin, 12249, Berlin, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut, Bernoullistrasse 32, 4056, Basel, Switzerland

    Senecio Schefer, Alexandre Kounov & Stefan M. Schmid

  2. Univerzitet u Beogradu, Rudarsko Geološki Fakultet, Đušina 7, 11000, Beograd, Republic of Serbia

    Vladica Cvetković

  3. Institut für Geologie und Paläontologie, Innrain 52, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Bernhard Fügenschuh

  4. Section des sciences de la Terre et de l’environnement, Rue des Maraîchers 13, 1205, Geneva, Switzerland

    Maria Ovtcharova & Urs Schaltegger

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  1. Senecio Schefer
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Correspondence to Senecio Schefer.

Appendix A: Fission-track dating

Appendix A: Fission-track dating

Remarks regarding the interpretation of fission-track data

When interpreting fission-track results, we took into account that the central ages obtained by dating the minerals are not necessarily a geological meaningful age because the tracks produced by the decay of 238U are not stable at all temperature conditions. There is a temperature range, the partial annealing zone (PAZ), at which the tracks in the mineral lattice become annealed. As a result of the annealing process, these tracks shorten and eventually disappear completely. The effective closure of the system lies within this PAZ and is dependent on the overall cooling rates and the kinetic properties of the minerals. The specific PAZ for apatite lies between 120 and 60°C (Green and Duddy 1989; Corrigan 1983). The PAZ for zircon is not equally well defined and a wide range of temperature bounds has been published. Yamada et al. (1995) suggest temperature ranges of ca. 390–170°C, whereas Tagami and Dimitru (1996) and Tagami et al. (1998) report ca. 310–230°C. Recently, in his overview on the zircon fission-track dating method, Tagami (2005) reported temperature ranges for the zircon closure temperature of ca. 300–200°C. Accordingly, we use a value of 250 ± 50°C for the closure temperature and a zircon PAZ of 300–200°C.

Apatite fission-track thermal modelling

Fission tracks in apatite form continuously through time with an approximately uniform initial mean length of ~16.3 μm (Gleadow et al. 1986). Upon heating, tracks gradually anneal and shorten to a length that is a function of the time and maximum temperature to which the apatites were exposed. For example, tracks are completely annealed at a temperature of 110–120°C for a period of 105–106 years (Gleadow and Duddy 1981). These annealing characteristics allow the generation of time–temperature paths by inverse modelling (e.g. Gallagher et al. 1998; Ketcham et al. 2003). As the resolution of the AFT thermo-chronometer is limited to the temperature range of 120–60°C (Laslett et al. 1987), the paths of the t-T envelope defined for the zones outside of this range are not necessarily representative for the real thermal evolution of a sample.

Modelling of the apatite age and track-length distribution data was carried out with the program HeFTy (Ketcham et al. 2003). Fission-track age, track-length distribution, and etch pits diameters (Dpar) as well as user-defined time–temperature (t-T) boxes are used as input parameters. An inverse Monte Carlo algorithm with a multikinetic annealing model (Ketcham et al. 2007) was used to generate the time–temperature paths. The algorithm generates a large number of time–temperature paths, which are tested with respect to the input data. The t-T paths are forced to pass through the time–temperature boxes (constraints). The fitting of the measured input data and modelled output data are statistically evaluated and characterized by the value of ‘goodness of fit’ (GOF). A ‘good’ result corresponds to values >0.5, whereas a value of 0.05 or higher is considered to reflect an ‘acceptable’ fit between modelled and measured data.

It is important to remember that the ‘best’ thermal history obtained during this process is not necessarily the only possible one. Other thermal histories may match the observed data similarly well, and it is therefore imperative to consider as many other geological constraints as possible to determine the most likely path.

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Schefer, S., Cvetković, V., Fügenschuh, B. et al. Cenozoic granitoids in the Dinarides of southern Serbia: age of intrusion, isotope geochemistry, exhumation history and significance for the geodynamic evolution of the Balkan Peninsula. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 100, 1181–1206 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-010-0599-x

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