Tectonic accretion and recycling of the continental lithosphere during the Alpine orogeny along the Pyrenees

• Autores: Olivier Vanderhaeghe, Alexia Grabkowiak
• Localización: Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France, ISSN 0037-9409, Vol. 185, Nº. 4, 2014, págs. 257-277
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The goal of this paper is to identify the fate of the continental lithosphere along the Iberia-Eurasia convergent plate boundary marked by the formation of the Pyrenean orogenic belt. The present-day volumes of crust and lithosphere beneath the Pyrenees and the volume of eroded crust redistributed in neighbo ring basins are evaluated based on a synthesis of available geological and geophysical data. The volumes that are expected to have transited across the former plate boundary are modeled taking into account Iberia-Eurasia convergence and making assumptions regarding the initial lithospheric and crustal structure of the Iberia-Eurasia plate boundary at the onset of continental collision (~83 Ma).

    Despite large uncertainties, the difference between the initial and present-day lithospheric structures suggests that at 83 Ma, either the Iberia-Eurasia plate boundary was marked by a zone of thinned lithosphere (oceanic and/or continental), or the lithosphere having transited across the plate boundary has for the most part been recycled into the mantle.

    At the crustal-scale, the volume of tectonically accreted crust is estimated by adding the volume of crust currently present in the Pyrenean orogenic belt to the volume of sediments deposited in neighboring basins, and by subtracting the initial volume of crust at the onset of continental collision considering two end-members, namely (i) a continental rift or (ii) a 35 km wide oceanic basin. In both cases, this tectonically accreted crustal volume is not enough to match the calculated volume of crust that has potentially transited across the plate boundary as a consequence of convergence since 83 Ma. As a result, our computation suggests that at least 30% (and as much as 63%) of the continental crust has subducted with the Iberian lithospheric slab and has been recycled into the mantle.

    In addition, the synthesis of topographic and geophysical (gravity and seismic tomography) reveals a peculiar crustal and lithospheric scale structure for the current day Pyrenees characterized by (i) an elliptical-cone-shape Pyrenean mountain range underlain by an elliptical-cone-shaped crustal root pointing down, and (ii) two tongues of lithospheric mantle in the central part of the belt. These features are interpreted as reflecting redistribution of the lithospheric mantle and of the orogenic crust by ductile flow after subduction and tectonic accretion. We propose that following a period of subduction/collision from 83 to 35 Ma, the decrease in the convergence rate between Iberia-Eurasia favored thermal relaxation of the Iberian slab promoting ductile flow and the development of gravitational instabilities. We suggest that the orogenic root has been dragged down by the dense lithospheric root and that part of it has been recycled into the mantle. In this view, the current-day lithospheric tongues represent the remnants of the lithospheric root after thermal relaxation and recycling by convective removal.