Abstract
New zircon and apatite fission-track (FT) data, including apatite thermal modelling, are combined with an extensive literature survey and reconnaissance-type structural fieldwork in the Eastern Apuseni Mountains. This leads to a better understanding of the complex structural and thermal history of a key area at the boundary between two megatectonic units in the Balkan peninsula, namely the Tisza and Dacia Mega-Units. Following Late Jurassic obduction of the Transylvanian ophiolites onto a part of the Dacia Mega-Unit, that is, the Biharia nappe system, both units were buried to a minimum of 8 km during late Early Cretaceous times when these units were underthrust below the Tisza Mega-Unit consisting of the present-day Codru and Bihor nappe systems. Tisza formed the upper plate during Early Cretaceous (‘Austrian’) east-facing orogeny. Turonian to Campanian zircon FT cooling ages (95–71 Ma) from the Bihor and Codru nappe systems and the Biharia and Baia de Arieş nappes (at present the structurally lowest part of the Dacia Mega-Unit) record exhumation that immediately followed a second Cretaceous-age (i.e. Turonian) orogenic event. Thrusting during this overprinting event was NW-facing and led to the overall geometry of the present-day nappe stack in the Apuseni Mountains. Zircon FT ages, combined with thermal modelling of the apatite FT data, show relatively rapid post-tectonic cooling induced by a third shortening pulse during the latest Cretaceous (‘Laramian’ phase), followed by slower cooling across the 120°–60 °C temperature interval during latest Cretaceous to earliest Paleogene times (75–60 Ma). Cenozoic-age slow cooling (60–40 Ma) was probably related to erosional denudation postdating ‘Laramian’ large-scale updoming.
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the Geological Institute of the Basel University and the Swiss National Science Foundation (projects ‘Tisza’ Nrs. 200021-101883/1 and 200020- 109278/1). The authors would like to thank Ioan Balintoni, Ioan Bucur and Emanoil Săsăran from the Babeş-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca), Mircea Săndulescu (Bucharest), as well as Volker Schuller (Tübingen) for introducing us to the Apuseni geology. We shared many discussions with all of them, as well as with Bernhard Fügenschuh, Martin Reiser (Innsbruck) and Liviu Matenco (Amsterdam). Daniel Bernoulli is thanked for his help that greatly improved the manuscript. Also, the constructive reviews of Volker Schuller and Franz Neubauer are gratefully acknowledged.
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Kounov, A., Schmid, S.M. Fission-track constraints on the thermal and tectonic evolution of the Apuseni Mountains (Romania). Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 102, 207–233 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-012-0800-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-012-0800-5