Articles | Volume 12, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-2425-2021
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https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-2425-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| Highlight paper
| 
27 Oct 2021
Research article | Highlight paper |
| 27 Oct 2021
| 27 Oct 2021
The Subhercynian Basin: an example of an intraplate foreland basin due to a broken plate
Department of Structural Geology and Geodynamics, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Goldschmidtstr. 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Jonas Kley
Department of Structural Geology and Geodynamics, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Goldschmidtstr. 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
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Revised manuscript not accepted
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Our knowledge of the geological history of mountain belts relies strongly on thermochronometers, methods that reconstruct the temperature history of rocks found in mountain belts. Here we provide a new equation that describes the motion of rocks in a simplified, wedge-shaped representation of a mountain belt. The equation can be used to interpret thermochronometers and can help quantify the deformation, uplift and erosion history of mountain belts.
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Short summary
Central western Europe underwent a strange episode of lithospheric deformation, resulting in a chain of small mountains that run almost west–east across the continent and that formed in the middle of a tectonic plate, not at its edges as is usually expected. Associated with these mountains, in particular the Harz in central Germany, are marine basins contemporaneous with the mountain growth. We explain how those basins came to be as a result of the mountains bending the adjacent plate.
Central western Europe underwent a strange episode of lithospheric deformation, resulting in a...
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