Kinematics and extent of the Piemont–Liguria Basin – implications for subduction processes in the Alps

Le Breton, Eline; Brune, Sascha; Ustaszewski, Kamil; Zahirovic, Sabin; Seton, Maria; Müller, R. Dietmar

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-885-2021

Articles | Volume 12, issue 4

Solid Earth, 12, 885–913, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-885-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue: New insights into the tectonic evolution of the Alps and the...

Solid Earth, 12, 885–913, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-885-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 4

Research article 21 Apr 2021

Research article | 21 Apr 2021

Kinematics and extent of the Piemont–Liguria Basin – implications for subduction processes in the Alps

Eline Le Breton et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-885-2021-supplement

Data sets

A Global Plate Model Including Lithospheric Deformation Along Major Rifts and Orogens Since the Triassic R. D. Müller, S. Zahirovic, S. E. Williams, J. Cannon, M. Seton, D. J. Bower, M. G. Tetley, C. Heine, E. Le Breton, S. Liu, S. H. J. Russel, T. Yang, J. Leonard, and M. Gurnis https://www.earthbyte.org/webdav/ftp/ Data_Collections/Muller_etal_2019_Tectonics/

Short summary

The former Piemont–Liguria Ocean, which separated Europe from Africa–Adria in the Jurassic, opened as an arm of the central Atlantic. Using plate reconstructions and geodynamic modeling, we show that the ocean reached only 250 km width between Europe and Adria. Moreover, at least 65 % of the lithosphere subducted into the mantle and/or incorporated into the Alps during convergence in Cretaceous and Cenozoic times comprised highly thinned continental crust, while only 35 % was truly oceanic.