Austrian versus Hungarian bauxites in an Alpine tectonic context: a tribute to Prof. Andrea Mindszenty

Abstract

The correlation between the Cretaceous bauxites of Austria and Hungary was first highlighted by the pioneering work of Andrea Mindszenty in the 1980s. The physical distance today between these bauxite occurrences, located in the Northern Calcareous Alps and the Transdanubian Central Range, is on the order of hundred of kilometers. However, a semi-quantitative palinspastic reconstruction of their relative positions at the time of bauxite deposition during the Late Cretaceous (Turonian to early Santonian) shows their much closer proximity. Still, the important differences between these Upper Cretaceous bauxites are due to their different paleogeographic settings during their deposition on a subaerially exposed Eo-Alpine nappe substratum. Some other differences, such as porosity, are attributed to the subsequent tectonic overprint in the Alpine edifice. The Austrian and Hungarian bauxites not only record important information about of the syn-depositional geologic landscape but also provide clues about the pre- and post-depositional regional tectonic context of the areas where they developed. The typical setting for many of the Cretaceous bauxites in the broader Alpine region was uplift and karstification associated with the formation of various flexural basin systems. Therefore bauxites, in general, may contain important geologic information about the regional geodynamic processes, as it was pointed by Andrea Mindszenty, in a pioneering manner, already in the early 1990s.