Eoalpine to Neoalpine magmatic and metamorphic processes in the northwestern Vardar Zone, the easternmost Periadriatic Zone and the southwestern Pannonian Basin

Abstract

The occurrence of Eoalpine-Neoalpine, genetically different, granitoids and penecontemporaneous volcanics are characteristic for the Vardar Zone. These rocks are mostly associated with Late Cretaceous-Paleogene basinal sedimentary rocks underlain by ophiolites. The Late Cretaceous-Paleogene rocks were progressively metamorphosed under mediumpressure conditions and intruded by synkinematic Mesoalpine granitoids. The high-pressure blueschist metamorphism was related to a pre-Maastrichtian Eoalpine metamorphic event. Eoalpine and Mesoalpine magmatism and the related metamorphism of the Vardar Zone may have taken place along a magmatic arc, i.e., the subduction zone. The easternmost parts of the Periadriatic Zone are characterized only by Oligocene granitoids accompanied by penecontemporaneous volcanic rocks. Here, younger Alpine metamorphic phases only overprint and mylonitize older pre-Alpine formations. Most of the Mesoalpine granite plutonism both of the Vardar Zone and the easternmost area of the Periadriatic Zone was related to subsequent extension. The southwestern and southern parts of the Pannonian Basin contain the products of four pulses of Mesoalpine and Neoalpine synsedimentary volcanic activity (Egerian-Eggenburgian, Ottnangian-Carpathian, Badenian and post-Badenian) represented by predominant basalt-andesites, trachyandesites and trachydacites. This post-subduction volcanism was closely connected with the cyclic marine ingressions in the Pannonian Basin.