Late evolution of the southern European Variscan belt: Exhumation of the lower crust in a context of oblique convergence

Abstract

The south-eastern part of the European Variscan belt forms a zone composed of several crystalline segments: the External Crystalline Massifs of the western Alps, the Maures-Tanneron massif, also Corsica and Sardinia, which are mutually displaced due to the Alpine deformation of the European Paleozoic lithosphere. All these crystalline fragments record similar structural, metamorphic, geochronological and magmatic histories during Paleozoic times. In particular, the Late Carboniferous period (∼320–300 Ma) is characterized by crustal-scale folding associated with strike-slip faulting and intracontinental basin formation. In this transpressive context, dome structures exhume partially-molten crust in convergent setting, which is in contradiction with generally accepted models of late orogenic collapse of the Variscan belt. It is suggested that this particular transpressive–obliquely convergent template, exemplified by tectonometamorphic evolution of the Maures-Tanneron massif, is valid for the whole eastern European Variscan margin.