Exhumation of eclogitic ophiolitic nappes in the W. Alps: New age data and implications for crustal wedge dynamics

Abstract

The W. Alps high pressure ophiolitic terranes (Monviso and Rocciavre areas) are a natural laboratory to study processes such as nappe-stacking and crustal exhumation in the deep regions of subduction margins. We sampled each of the main shear zones, representing thrust contacts later reactivated as detachments, for petrological and Rb-Sr multi-mineral geochronological analyses. Three generations of white mica are commonly found in mylonitized metasediments with crystal cores formed during the high pressure event, a broad rim formed during decompression in the epidote blueschist facies and texturally late muscovite flakes locally lining the main foliation. Semi-brittle discrete shear zones commonly crosscut previous structures witnessing deformation at temperatures lower than 300°C during exhumation. In spite of this apparent structural heterogeneity, homogeneous deformation ages mostly ranging between 38 and 35 Ma were obtained for all the shear zones bounding these major ophiolitic bodies. Pseudosection modeling confirms that the bulk of the shearing occurred in the epidote blueschist facies around 400–450°C and 1.0–1.5 GPa. These findings suggest that the shear zones between high pressure ophiolitic nappes were being actively mylonitized during exhumation in the lower epidote blueschist facies (25–40 km depth) between 38 and 35 Ma while some of the units forming the internal crystalline massifs (e.g. the Dora Maira Ultra High-Pressure unit) were still buried at more than 100 km depth (3–4 GPa and 36-34 Ma, according to most recent peak burial estimates). The growth of a crustal-scale duplex in the W. Alps is seen here as a consequence of basal accretion events that followed the exhumation of eclogitized coherent crustal slices in a serpentinized subduction channel. We conclude that in the study area (i) the buoyancy-driven exhumation of subducted continental crust has not been the only and decisive trigger for the exhumation of eclogitized oceanic lithosphere and (ii) continental subduction imprint on crustal wedge dynamics may have not been as instrumental as previously thought.