Synthesis of the tectonic-sedimentary evolution of the Mesozoic-Early Cenozoic Pindos ocean: evidence from the NW Peloponnese, Greece

Abstract

Abstract The tectonic development of the western part of the Pindos ocean in southern Greece is exemplified by the mountainous Pindos thrust belt in the NW Peloponnese. A Late Triassic-Early Cenozoic succession exposed within imbricate thrust sheets records a range of deep-water siliciclastic, redeposited carbonate and siliceous sediments, which in general become more distal oceanwards towards the east. Igneous rocks, locally dated as Triassic, occur within a mélange that is entrained beneath and within the Pindos thrust stack; these igneous rocks and related sediments are interpreted as remnants of a continent-ocean transition zone. ‘Immobile’ element geochemistry is explicable by rifting of a compositionally heterogeneous subcontinental mantle, possibly related to pre-existing Hercynian subduction, although coeval Triassic subduction cannot be excluded based on evidence from this area alone. Localized, ‘enriched’ basalts are interpreted as fragments of oceanic seamounts formed in a relatively distal setting. Late Paleocene-Early Eocene (locally Mid-Eocene) siliciclastic turbidites, derived from the north, record the latest deposition prior to incorporation of the sedimentary succession into a westward-migrating accretionary wedge during post-Early Eocene time in the NW Peloponnese. Structural restoration of the well-ordered thrust stack indicates a minimum of 201 km (55%) of shortening at an average rate of 5.8 mm a −1 . As the Pindos allochthon approached the Apulian continent, the Gavrovo-Tripolitza foreland underwent flexural upwarp during the Mid-Eocene, followed by collapse to create a foreland basin by the Late Eocene. This basin was infilled with generally upward-thickening and -coarsening deep-water turbiditic sediments of Late Eocene-Early Oligocene age. The foreland was, in turn, overthrust by the Pindos accretionary prism during post-Early Paleocene time, and was then imbricated and thrust over the Ionian foreland basin to the west by Pliocene time.