Abstract
The Pieniny Klippen Belt (PKB) is a narrow structure delineating the boundary between the Central and Outer Carpathians. It is built of nappes stacked during the Cretaceous and Paleocene and then re-folded in the Miocene during the formation of the Outer Carpathian overthrusts. The internal structure of the PKB at the Polish/Slovakian border first formed during northward nappe thrusting processes, which were most intense at the turn of the Cretaceous to the Paleocene. A secondary factor is the change in strike of the PKB turning from W–E to WNW–ESE, associated with dextral strike-slip faulting in the Carpathian basement (North-European Platform). These NNW-SSE oriented strike-slip fault zones, broadly parallel to the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone, are responsible for the segmentation of the down-going plate, which influenced the subduction and collision between the North-European Platform and the Central Carpathian Block. Among them, the most important role was played by the Kraków—Myszków Fault Zone separating the Małopolska and Upper Silesian blocks in the Carpathian foreland. Shifts and interactions between the neighboring Pieniny and Outer Carpathian basins—during contemporaneous sedimentation and deformation—resulted in a difficult-to-define, transitional zone. Until now this zone had the rank of a tectonic unit, named “Grajcarek Unit” in Poland and “Šariš Unit” in the Slovak Republic. However, its northern boundary, often taken to represent the Central/Outer Carpathians boundary, is ambiguous. These problems are due to the spatial overlap of thrusting and gravitational flows resulting in chaotic breccias, olistoliths and olistostrome formation, which formed repeatedly and became deformed during the Maastrichtian to Early Miocene. Tectonic deformations in this area gradually vanished towards the north. This zone can therefore be defined as the Peri-Klippen part of the Magura Nappe that lacks a distinct northern tectonic limit. For this reason it is named Šariš Transitional Zone (ŠTZ).
Highlights
Chaotic sedimentary deposits typically appear in the foreland of thrust-belts and accretionary prisms and are synchronous with nappe thrusting processes
In the literature the most external part of the Pieniny Klippen Belt, near the Poland—Slovakia border, is referred to as Grajcarek Unit in Poland (Birkenmajer 1977, 1986) or Saris (Fakl’ovka) Unit in the Slovak Republic (Plasienka et al 2012). It has the character of a transitional zone towards the Outer Carpathians. This unit formed as an effect of interactions between the Pieniny Klippen Belt and the northerly adjacent the Magura basins as a part of the Outer Carpathians that define the Carpathians arc (Fig. 1a, b), which formed during the Paleogene–Neogene as the result of subduction and convergence of Alcapa with the European plate
One of the aims is to show the reasons for the complexity of the structure of the Pieniny Klippen Belt (PKB), stemming from the character and the dynamics of the collision of the North-European Platform with the Central Carpathians Block, that is a part of the Alcapa Megaunit
Summary
Chaotic sedimentary deposits typically appear in the foreland of thrust-belts and accretionary prisms and are synchronous with nappe thrusting processes. In the literature the most external part of the Pieniny Klippen Belt, near the Poland—Slovakia border, is referred to as Grajcarek Unit in Poland (Birkenmajer 1977, 1986) or Saris (Fakl’ovka) Unit in the Slovak Republic (Plasienka et al 2012). It has the character of a transitional zone towards the Outer Carpathians. This unit formed as an effect of interactions between the Pieniny Klippen Belt and the northerly adjacent the Magura basins as a part of the Outer Carpathians that define the Carpathians arc (Fig. 1a, b), which formed during the Paleogene–Neogene as the result of subduction and convergence of Alcapa with the European plate
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