Late Cretaceous deformation of the Pieniny Klippen Belt, West Carpathians

Abstract

The Late Cretaceous position and dynamics of the Pieniny Klippen Belt of the West Carpathians, which lies behind the Palaeogene flysch accretionary prism, are reconstructed. As shown by the reconstruction, based on structural, sedimentological and palaeomagnetic data, the Pieniny Klippen Belt occupied a WNW-ESE to NW-SE trending zone during the Late Cretaceous, which acted as an oblique convergent boundary between the ancestral West Carpathians and the oceanic lithosphere attached to the North European platform. Sediments of the Pieniny Klippen Belt were part of both the mountain belt and foredeep at that time. Known change from pelagic micritic limestone to a flysch sequence is progressively younger seawards in the thrust-slice stack forming the Pieniny Klippen Belt. The syn-sedimentary record includes flysch, olistostrome and wildflysch sediments. Both the NW-SE thrusting along the NE-SW striking faults and dextral strike-slip faulting along the WNW-ESE to NW-SE striking faults were active in the Late Cretaceous in the area of the current Pieniny Klippen Belt.