Orogenic processes and the Corsica/Apennines geodynamic evolution: insights from Taiwan

Abstract

The Alps/Apennines system, as well as many collisional orogens through the world, shows a finite deformation produced during a long geological history which involves numerous superimposed tectonic events. As a result, complex and often contrasted reconstructions for the setting and tectonics of the different stages of the growing and interfering Alps/Apennines system have been proposed. To enlight some of the geometric and kinematic signatures related to past geodynamics in the composite Alps(Corsica)/Apennines system, we analyse the major deformation processes, their superimposition, and resulting finite structural geometries in the currently growing Taiwan orogenic system. The Taiwan island and its offshore northward and southward prolongations represent the emerged and the sub-marine parts of an orogenic wedge related to the interactions between the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea and recording different subduction settings. Using the Taiwan actualistic geodynamic scenarios and the related first-order geometric-kinematic constraints, we will attempt a reconstruction of the tectonic evolution for the Corsica/Apennines orogenic system foregrounding the key role of continental subduction and subduction reversal during such evolution.