Sedimentology and tectonic setting of the Pindos Flysch of the Peloponnese, Greece

Abstract

AbstractThe Palaeogene Pindos Flysch of the Peloponnese shows important differences from the flysch of northern Greece. Stratigraphic sections and palaeocurrent indicators were measured in the Pindos Flysch Formation and the underlying Kataraktis Passage Member throughout the Peloponnese. The Kataraktis Passage Member records carbonate-dominated sedimentation from the Apulian continental margin to the west, with intercalated terrigenous sediment also derived from the west. Variations in thickness and turbidite facies show that the overlying Pindos Flysch Formation was deposited in channels with levees and in channel-termination lobes in the western Peloponnese and in a distal basin plain, locally ponded, in the east. At least in the central Peloponnese, facies variation, palaeocurrents and detrital petrology show that the Pindos Flysch was derived from the Apulian margin. The Pindos Flysch of northern Greece, of late Paleocene to Oligocene age, was deposited in a foreland basin and derived from the rising Pelagonian nappes to the east. A younger microcontinental collision south of the Gulf of Corinth line resulted in the Pindos Flysch of the Peloponnese being incorporated in the accretionary prism by Mid-Eocene time.