The Balkan Fold-Thrust Belt: an overview of the main features

Abstract

The Balkan Fold-Thrust Belt is a part of the northern branch of the Alpine-Himalayan orogen in the Balkan Peninsula and represents a Tertiary structure developed along the southern margin of the Moesian Platform. The thrust belt displays of two clearly distinct parts: an eastern one dominated exclusively by thin-skinned thrusting and a western part showing ubiquitous basement involvement. A wide transitional zone is locked between both parts where the structural style is dominantly thin-skinned, but with significant pre-Mesozoic basement involvement in the more internal parts. For the western thick-skinned part the poorly developed syn-orogenic flysch is a characteristic feature that along with the very restricted development of foreland basin suggests a rather limited orogenic shortening compared to the eastern part of the belt. The Tertiary Balkan Fold-Thrust Belt originated mainly through a basement-driven shortening and this is explained by the occurrence of compatibly oriented reactivated basement weak zones of pre-Carboniferous, Jurassic and Early Cretaceous ages. The proposed re-definition of the Balkan thrusts system and internal structure of the allochthons also call for significant re-assessment of the existing schemes of tectonic subdivision.