[1] Studies conducted in present-day magma-poor rifted margins reveal that the transition from weakly thinned continental crust ($30 km) in proximal margins to hyper-extended crust (≤10 km) in distal margins occurs within a narrow zone, referred to as the necking zone. We have identified relics of a necking zone and of the adjacent distal margin in the Campo, Grosina and Bernina units of the fossil Alpine Tethys margins and investigated the deformation and sedimentary processes associated with extreme crustal thinning during rifting. Within the basement rocks of the necking zone, we show that: (1) Grosina basement represents pre-rift upper/middle crust, while the underlying Campo unit consists of pre-rift middle/lower crust that was exhumed and cooled below $300°C by ca. 180 Ma, when rifting started to localize within the future distal margin; (2) the juxtaposition of the Campo and Grosina units was accommodated by the Eita shear zone, which is interpreted as a decollement/decoupling horizon active at mid-crustal depth at 180-205 Ma; (3) the Grosina unit hosts a large-scale brittle detachment fault. Our observations suggest that crustal thinning, accommodated through the necking zone, is the result of the interplay between detachment faulting in the brittle layers and decoupling and thinning in ductile quartzo-feldspatic middle crustal levels along localized ductile decollements. The excision of ductile mid-crustal layers and the progressive embrittlement of the crust enables major detachment faults to cut into the underlying mantle, exhuming it to the seafloor. This structural evolution can explain the first-order crustal architecture of many present-day rifted margins.

The Lago di Cignana ultra-high-pressure unit (LCU), which consists of coesite-eclogite facies metabasics and metasediments, preserves the most deeply subducted oceanic rocks worldwide. New constraints on the prograde and early retrograde evolution of this ultra-high pressure unit and adjoining units provide important insights into the evolution of the Piemontese-Ligurian palaeo-subduction zone, active in Paleocene-Eocene times. In the LCU, a first prograde metamorphic assemblage, consisting of omphacite + Ca-amphibole + epidote + rare biotite + ilmenite, formed during burial at estimated P < 1.7 GPa and 350 < T < 480°C. Similar metamorphic conditions of 400 < T < 650°C and 1.0 < P < 1.7 GPa have been estimated for the meta-ophiolitic rocks juxtaposed to the LCU. The prograde assemblage is partially re-equilibrated into the peak assemblage garnet + omphacite + Na-amphibole + lawsonite + coesite + rutile, whose conditions were estimated at 590 < T < 605°C and P > 3.2 GPa. The prograde path was characterized by a gradual decrease in the thermal gradient from 9-10 to 5-6°C km )1 . This variation is interpreted as the evidence of an increase in the rate of subduction of the Piemonte-Ligurian oceanic slab in the Eocene. Accretion of the Piemontese oceanic rocks to the Alpine orogen and thermal relaxation were probably related to the arrival of more buoyant continental crust at the subduction zone. Subsequent deformation of the orogenic wedge is responsible for the present position of the LCU, sandwiched between two tectonic slices of metaophiolites, named the Lower and Upper Units, which experienced peak pressures of 2.7-2.8 and <2.4 GPa respectively.

The discovery of exhumed continental mantle and hyper-extended crust in present-day magma-poor rifted margins is at the origin of a paradigm shift within the research field of deep-water rifted margins. It opened new questions about the strain history of rifted margins and the nature and composition of sedimentary, crustal and mantle rocks in rifted margins. Thanks to the benefit of more than one century of work in the Alps and access to world-class outcrops preserving the primary relationships between sediments and crustal and mantle rocks from the fossil Alpine Tethys margins, it is possible to link the subsidence history and syn-rift sedimentary evolution with the strain distribution observed in the crust and mantle rocks exposed in the distal rifted margins. In this paper, we will focus on the transition from early to late rifting that is associated with considerable crustal thinning and a reorganization of the rift system. Crustal thinning is at the origin of a major change in the style of deformation from high-angle to lowangle normal faulting which controls basin-architecture, sedimentary sources and processes and the nature of basement rocks exhumed along the detachment faults in the distal margin. Stratigraphic and isotopic ages indicate that this major change occurred in late Sinemurian time, involving a shift of the syn-rift sedimentation toward the distal domain associated with a major reorganization of the crustal structure with exhumation of lower and middle crust. These changes may be triggered by mantle processes, as indicated by the infiltration of MOR-type magmas in the lithospheric mantle, and the uplift of the Briançonnais domain. Thinning and exhumation of the crust and lithosphere also resulted in the creation of new paleogeographic domains, the Proto Valais and Liguria-Piemonte domains. These basins show a complex, 3D temporal and spatial evolution that might have evolved, at least in the case of the Liguria-Piemonte basin, in the formation of an embryonic oceanic crust. The re-interpretation of the rift evolution and the architecture of the distal rifted margins in the Alps have important implications for the understanding of rifted margins worldwide, but also for the paleogeographic reconstruction of the Alpine domain and its subsequent Alpine compressional overprint.

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This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. Magma-poor rifted margins are being increasingly recognized in present-day Atlantic-type systems. However, findings of fossil areas floored by exhumed mantle or hyper-extended crust are comparatively rare within orogenic belts that were originated through the inversion of pre-existing rifted margins. This discrepancy may be due to the common reactivation of lithological contacts during subduction/orogeny, potentially masking pre-orogenic relationships, and, most importantly, to the frequent lack of a preorogenic layer-cake architecture, hindering retro-deformation of multiply deformed tectonic units. This study outlines a methodology to detect sections of magma-poor, hyper-extended rifted margins without a layer-cake architecture in multiply deformed/metamorphosed terrains. This approach is defined by comparison to well studied examples of fossil analogues preserved in weakly deformed parts of Alpine orogens. In the latter domains, continental basement and hydrated peridotites were exhumed at the basin floor during Jurassic rifting along long-offset detachment systems. Extensional geometries locally resulted in tectonic sampling of laterally discontinuous slivers of allochthonous continental basement and pre-rift sediments from the hanging wall blocks. Lithostratigraphic associations consisting of continental basement rocks directly juxtaposed with syn-to post-rift meta-sediments and/or serpentinized subcontinental mantle are widespread within sections of Alpine-type orogenic belts that underwent high-to ultra-high-pressure metamorphism. However, similar associations may arise from a variety of processes other than rift-related lithospheric thinning in magma-poor environments, including subduction mélange dynamics or deposition of sedimentary mélanges along convergent/divergent margins. The partial preservation of rift-related lithostratigraphic associations may still be assessed, despite the lack of biostratigraphic evidence, by (1) the consistency of the lithostratigraphic architecture over large areas, despite pervasive Alpine deformation, which rules out chaotic mixing during subduction/ exhumation, (2) the presence of clasts of basement rocks in the neighboring meta-sediments, indicating the original proximity of the different lithologies, (3) evidence of brittle deformation in continental basement and ultramafic rocks pre-dating Alpine metamorphism, indicating that they were juxtaposed by fault activity prior to the deposition of post-rift sediments, and (4) the similar Alpine tectono-metamorphic evolution of ophiolites, continental basement and meta-sediments. A re-assessment of basement-cover relationships in...