Development of block structure in the crust below the Pannonian basin

Abstract

The analysis of geophysical and geological data on the structure of the pre-Miocene substratum of the Pannonian basin has revealed a block structure. The crust was divided by deep-seated faults of mainly NE-SW orientation. The deep-seated faults separate zones of continental crust (with granitoids), which were more intensely consolidated during the Hercynian, from strips with volcanic-sedimentary rocks of eugeosynclinal character (sub-oceanic crust). In geological development of the Pannonian basin crust during the last 330 million years, subsidence predominated over uplift and denudation. The great mobility of the crust ist related to its lesser thickness compared to the thick crust in the orogenic border and median massifs, e. g. of the Balkan region. The block structure is superimposed on the original belt structure and nucleus stage of continental crust formation. In the pre-Hercynian stage, tectonic division along E-W and N-S lines predominated. The long persistence and magmatic activity of deep-seated faults and their almost vertical dip do not support proposed models of partial subduction and closing of microoceans in the region of the Pannonian basin. Strips or blocks of suboceanic crust are considered to be relicts of more weakly sialized original thin oceanic crust. The Pannonian basin is not a typical ensialic basin. Tectonic development has distinctly changed the mantle diapir, which originated in the Late Cretaceous. Along the circumference of this diapir, shear zones originated in the crust, along which seismic activity has persisted to the present. The Pannonian megablock is a type of simatic median massif, preserving long-lasting subsidence mobility. The Pannonian mantle diapir is considered to be an autonomous deep structure in the sense ofvan Bemmelen (1972). We do not relate the ascent of the mantle diapir to subduction of lithospheric plates, which must have been the cause of folding of the Carpathians according toStegena et al. (1975).