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Uplift and late orogenic deformation of the Central European Variscan belt as revealed by sediment provenance and structural record in the Carboniferous foreland basin of western Poland

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Abstract

The Carboniferous foreland basin of western Poland contains a coherent succession of late Viséan through Westphalian turbidites derived from a uniform group of sources located within a continental magmatic arc. Detrital zircon geochronology indicates that two main crustal components were present in the source area of Namurian A sediments. They represent Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous ages, respectively. The detritus from Westphalian D beds is much more diversified and contains admixture of Late Carboniferous zircons suggesting rapid unroofing of Variscan igneous intrusions in the hinterland between Namurian A and Westphalian D times. Tectonic repetitions of tens of metres thick fault-bounded stratigraphic intervals, recorded in several wells, provide evidence for compressional regime that occurred in the SW part of the Carboniferous basin not earlier than during the Westphalian C and produced NW–SE trending folds, concordant with the structural grain of the adjacent, NE part of the Bohemian Massif.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Polish Research Committee (KBN) and the Ministry of the Environment (Project PCZ-007-21 ‘Palaeozoic Accretion of Poland’, coordinated by Jerzy Nawrocki of the Polish Geological Institute). We thank the Polish Oil and Gas Company (POGC) for kindly providing the drillhole data and Józef Nowak, Marek Stadtmüller and Piotr Pasek of Geofizyka Kraków and Marian Kiełt of Geofizyka Toruń for laborious re-processing of the dipmeter record files.

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  1. S. Mazur

    Present address: GETECH, Kitson House, Elmete Hall, Elmete Lane, Leeds, LS8 2LJ, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Borna 9, 50-204, Wrocław, Poland

    S. Mazur, P. Aleksandrowski, K. Turniak, A. Górecka-Nowak & L. Kurowski

  2. Polish Geological Institute, Rakowiecka 4, 00-975, Warsaw, Poland

    L. Krzemiński & P. Krzywiec

  3. 2005 Bow Drive, Port Coquitlam, BC, V3E 1X4, Canada

    K. Mastalerz

  4. Institute of Geological Sciences PAN, Podwale 75, 50-449, Wrocław, Poland

    A. Żelaźniewicz

  5. Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Mills Road, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    M. C. Fanning

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Mazur, S., Aleksandrowski, P., Turniak, K. et al. Uplift and late orogenic deformation of the Central European Variscan belt as revealed by sediment provenance and structural record in the Carboniferous foreland basin of western Poland. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 99, 47–64 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-008-0367-3

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