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Hot metamorphic core complex in a cold foreland

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Abstract

The Montagne Noire forms the southernmost part of the French Massif Central. Carboniferous flysch sediments and very low-grade metamorphic imprint testify to a very external position in the orogen. Sedimentation of synorogenic clastic sediments continued up to the Viséan/Namurian boundary (≤320 Ma). Subsequently, the Palaeozoic sedimentary pile underwent recumbent folding and grossly southward thrusting. An extensional window exposes a hot core of Carboniferous HT/LP gneisses, migmatites and granites (Zone Axiale), which was uplifted from under the nappe pile. After the emplacement of the nappes on the Zone Axiale (Variscan D1), all structural levels shared the same tectonic evolution: D2 (extension and exhumation), D3 (refolding) and post-D3 dextral transtension. HT/LP-metamorphism in the crystalline rocks probably started before and continued after the emplacement of the nappes. Peak metamorphic temperatures were attained during a post-nappe thermal increment (M2). M2 occurred during ENE-directed bilateral extension, which exhumed the Zone Axiale and its frame as a ductile horst structure, flanked to the ENE by a Stephanian intra-montane basin. Map patterns and mesoscopic structures reveal that extension in ENE occurred simultaneously with NNW-oriented shortening. Combination of these D2 effects defines a bulk prolate strain in a “pinched pull-apart” setting. Ductile D2 deformation during M2 dominates the structural record. In wide parts of the nappes on the southern flank of the Zone Axiale, D1 is only represented by the inverted position of bedding (overturned limbs of recumbent D1 folds) and by refolded D1 folds. U–Pb monazite and zircon ages and K–Ar muscovite ages are in accord with Ar–Ar data from the literature. HT/LP metamorphism and granitoid intrusion commenced already at ≥330 Ma and continued until 297 Ma, and probably in a separate pulse in post-Stephanian time. Metamorphic ages older than c. 300 Ma are not compatible with the classical model of thermal relaxation after stacking, since they either pre-date or too closely post-date the end of flysch sedimentation. We therefore propose that migmatization and granite melt generation were independent from crustal thickening and caused, instead, by the repeated intrusion of melts into a crustal-scale strike-slip shear zone. Advective heating continued in a pull-apart setting whose activity outlasted the emplacement of the Variscan nappe pile. The shear-zone model is confirmed by similar orogen-parallel extensional windows with HT/LP metamorphism and granitoid intrusion in neighbouring areas, whose location is independent from their position in the orogen. We propose that heat transfer from the mantle occurred in dextral strike-slip shear zones controlled by the westward propagating rift of the Palaeotethys ocean, which helped to destroy the Variscan orogen.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge funding by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Fr 668/24). We are also indebted to helpful discussions with H. Echtler (Potsdam), P. Matte (Montpellier) and E. Stein (Darmstadt). Comments of an anonymous reviewer, by Michel Faure and Claudio Rosenberg have done much to improve the manuscript. We would also like to thank W. Dörr and J. Schastok for their help with isotopic dating. B. Rotthaus collected the geochronolgy samples coded “BR” and separated the micas.

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  1. Institut für Geowissenschaften der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Altenhöferallee 1, 60438, Frankfurt, Germany

    Wolfgang Franke & Kai Klama

  2. Geological Survey of Western Australia, Cnr Hunter and Broadwood Street, 6430, Kalgoorlie, WA, Australia

    Michael Patrick Doublier

  3. Institut Polytechnique La Salle Beauvais, 19 rue Pierre Waguet, BP 30313, 60026, Beauvais Cedex, France

    Sébastien Potel

  4. Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum der Georg-August Universität, Goldschmidtstraße 1-3, 37077, Göttingen, Germany

    Klaus Wemmer

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  1. Wolfgang Franke
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Franke.

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Franke, W., Doublier, M.P., Klama, K. et al. Hot metamorphic core complex in a cold foreland. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 100, 753–785 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-010-0512-7

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