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Polyphase thrusting and dyke emplacement in the central Southern Alps (Northern Italy)

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Abstract

The Triassic succession of the central Southern Alps (Italy) is stacked into several units bounded by south-verging low-angle thrust faults, which are related to two successive steps of crustal shortening. The thrust surfaces are cut by high-angle extensional and strike-slip faults, which controlled the emplacement of hypabissal magmatic intrusions that post-date thrusts motions. Intrusion ages based on SHRIMP U–Pb zircon dating span between 42 ± 1 and 39 ± 1 Ma, suggesting close time relationships with the earliest Adamello intrusion stages and, more in general, with the widespread calc-alkaline magmatism described in the Southern Alps. Fission-track ages of magmatic apatites are indistinguishable from U–Pb crystallization ages of zircons, suggesting that the intrusion occurred in country rocks already exhumed above the partial annealing zone of apatite (depth < 2–4 km). These data indicate that the central Southern Alps were already structured and largely exhumed in the Middle Eocene. Although we describe minor faults affecting magmatic bodies and local reactivations of older structures, no major internal deformations have occurred in the area after the Bartonian. Neogene deformations were instead concentrated farther south, along the frontal part of the belt.

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Acknowledgments

The article benefited from careful revisions and constructive comments by D. Bernoulli and N. Froitzheim. Thanks also to Chinese researchers for their help during our SHRIMP remote sessions, and W. Cavazza for allowing sample preparation with disc mills in the University of Bologna labs.

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche e Geotecnologie, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 4, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Paolo D’Adda, Andrea Zanchi, Maria Bergomi, Marco G. Malusà, Annalisa Tunesi & Stefano Zanchetta

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “A. Desio”, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Mangiagalli 34, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Fabrizio Berra

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  1. Paolo D’Adda
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D’Adda, P., Zanchi, A., Bergomi, M. et al. Polyphase thrusting and dyke emplacement in the central Southern Alps (Northern Italy). Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 100, 1095–1113 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-010-0586-2

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