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Exhuming the Alps through time: clues from detrital zircon fission-track thermochronology |
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| Authors: | M Bernet M Brandon J Garver† M L Balestieri‡ B Ventura§ M Zattin¶ |
| Institution: | Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; Geology Department, Union College, Schenectady, NY, USA; Dipartimento Scienze della Terra, University of Florence, Florence, Italy; Universität Bremen, Fachbereich Geowissenschaften, Bremen, Germany; Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geologico –Ambientali, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy |
| Abstract: | The European Alps are a mountain belt that is characterized by a series of discrete orogenic events, which have long been recognized. Despite the inherent episodic nature of orogenic evolution, the Alps have been continuously exhumed, mainly by erosion, but also by normal faulting. Since continental collision started in the late Eocene/Early Oligocene evidence for ongoing erosional exhumation has been preserved in synorogenic sediments that accumulated in basins adjacent to the pro- and retro-side of this double-vergent mountain belt. This long-term erosion record can be used to determine exhumation rates. Lag-times calculated from fission-track (FT) ages of detrital zircon from synorogenic sediments are fairly constant for the European Alps since the Oligocene–Late Miocene. Although the fast exhuming areas were unroofed at rates of 0.4–0.7 km Myr |
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