Austroalpine Nappes

By Unknown -

Alpenseminar by Madeline Richter


On the 11th of  May we had a great talk by Frau Richter on the formation and evolution of the Austroalpine Nappes. These particularly include the Silvretta, Koralpe, Ötzal and Drauzug units, which is highlighted on the figure below:

The relative location of the Austroalpine Nappes units, as highlighted above, after Frisch and Gawlick, 2003


Very soon it became clear that many developed a pain in their heads at these different names, however this pain soon subsided when we learnt that there is still much controvesy regarding how these various units are linked across different political and language boundaries. This pain had completely vanished when Frau Richter then introduced us to a more regional overview for better understanding, where Bavaric is the oldest and Juvavic is the youngest:

 
Overview of the major Nappes included within the Northern Calcareous Alps  Frisch and Gawlick, 2003

 
The depositional environments as mentioned above was then greatly discussed and put into a more regional context linked to the tectonic evolution:


The key to the formation and evolution of the Austroalpine Nappes


Importantly, the above diagram highlights how the opening of the Meliata, and later Penninic Oceans, created the rift settings for depositing the material that would form the Austroalpine Nappes. Then, the later closure of the Meliata (i.e. lower board) began thrusting and stacking these Nappes, with younger overlying older.


Location: Jena, Germany

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paleogeography of the Alps

By Unknown -
Image
Alpenseminar by Taufeeq Dhansay The formation of the Alpine Mountains can be broadly defined by the convergent movement of several continental plates and the associated opening and closing of oceanic basins. The science of Paleogeography aims to travel back in deep time and figure out how these different plates would have moved, and ultimately collided to form these magnificent mountains.  The protagonists Firstly, we should identify the main players (i.e. plates) in this story. This includes the larger African/Nubian and European plates, and the smaller Adriatic/Apulian and Iberian Plates. Below is a figure of the present-day alps and how its underlying tectonic units fit together: Broad overview of the major plates associated with the Alpine Orogeny, after  Handy et al., 2010 Importantly, zones between these plates (i.e. demarcated by darker colours on the above map) represent regions that, in particular, experienced varying levels of tectonism and/metamorp
Read more

Active Tectonics in the vicinity of the Alps

By -
Image
Alpenseminar by Benjamin Schmitz On the 27th of April we had a presentation on the active tectonics across the Alps by Benjamin Schmitz . To begin, we considered the tectonic setting across the Eastern Mediterranean by looking at the most recent Paleogeographic reconstruction of the Alpine orogeny. Recent Paleogeographic setting of the Alpine orogeny, after  Handy et al., 2015 The effect of the orogenesis linked to the indentation of the Adriatic Plate (brown on the above figure) into the European Plate (blue on the above figure) resulted in the formation of several faults and collisional zones. We may now consider: What tectonic effect remains? To better elaborate on this question, we may now consider the GPS velocities across Europe, Asia and North Africa, which is further associated to Nubia-Eurasia-Convergence: GPS-measured relative plate motions between the African and European/Eurasian Plates, after  Facenna et al., 2014 Importantly, this
Read more

Historical and Catastrophic Landslides

By Unknown -
Image
Alpenseminar and Blog post by Thomas Biehl On the 14th of May we had a presentation about really impressive and destructive landslides in the Alps. These landslides are generally related to large earthquakes and there are few examples that we may consider here: 1. Dobratsch - Carinthia In 1348 a destructive earthquake occurred near the town of Villach on the Austrian/Italian border. This earthquake resulted in several landslides along the 2166 m high Dobratsch massif, which lies atop the Periadriatic Lineament. Overview of the Dobratsch landslides, after  Lenhardt, 2007   The largest of these landslides was known as the "Rote Wand". This caused the destruction of a dam and the flooding of the whole Gail River Valley. Overview of the regional structure of the Dobratsch Mountains, after Stefan et al., 2004 2. Köfelsberg - Tirol Rapid Alpine deglaciation during the Holocene, approximately 9000 BC, resulted a massive landslide near th
Read more