Thrust tectonics in the North Pyrenees

Abstract

Balanced and restored cross-sections through the central and eastern Pyrenees, constructed using both surface and borehole data, demonstrate the presence of c.18km of shortening above a flat lying N-directed Alpine décollement surface. Hangingwall diagrams show how the North Pyrenean satellite massifs are culminations within this thrust system. Pre-thrusting structures such as subhorizontal stretching lineations in the North Pyrenean Fault zone became rotated above these culminations as the North Pyrenean Fault was cut by Alpine thrusts. Stratigraphic evidence demonstrates that N-directed thrust movements occurred between mid Eocene and Oligocene time, and this is similar to the age of major S-directed thrust movements on the south side of the Axial Zone. The N-directed thrust system probably originated as a series of backthrusts to the dominant S-directed structures.