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The carbonate formations of NE Evvoia, Greece, are remnants of the mature terrace phase of a shelf that evolved, from the Late Triassic through the Late Jurassic, on the periodically slumping passive margin of the Pelagonian micro-continent, initially in a divergent and later in a convergent setting. A starved shelf configuration is indicated by northward, distal thinning ( < 200 m) and deepening of facies, in contrast to southward, proximal thickening ( > 1000 m) and shallowing of facies. Tectonic subsidence dictated the deposition of the generally deepening-upward facies succession, which begins with peritidal carbonates and ends with radiolarites and siliciclastic turbidites. However, recurrent shallowing upward cycles show that carbonate accumulation also responded to oscillating sea level. The large-scale shelf architecture consists of three sequences: a progradational highstand tract, a shelf margin tract and a transgressive tract. The transgressive sequence was initiated in a convergent setting by tectonic loading and ended during approximately the Latest Jurassic with the emplacement of an (Eohellenic) ophiolite nappe over the Pelagonian formations. Contemporaneous with the deepening-upward succession of the Pelagonian margin, a shallowing-upward succession formed on top of the oceanic ophiolite assemblage, initially below the CCD in the early divergent setting, later above the CCD in the convergent setting.

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The Late Triassic and Jurassic platform and the oceanic complexes in Evvoia, Greece, share a complementary plate-tectonic evolution. Shallow marine carbonate deposition responded to changing rates of subsidence and uplift, whilst the adjacent ocean underwent spreading, and then convergence, collision and finally obduction over the platform complex. Late Triassic ocean spreading correlated with platform subsidence and the formation of a long-persisting peritidal passive-margin platform. Incipient drowning occurred from the Sinemurian to the late Middle Jurassic. This subsidence correlated with intra-oceanic subduction and plate convergence that led to supra-subduction calc-alkaline magmatism and the formation of a primitive volcanic arc. During the Middle Jurassic, plate collision caused arc uplift above the carbonate compensation depth (CCD) in the oceanic realm, and related thrust-faulting, on the platform, led to sub-aerial exposures. Patch-reefs developed there during the Late Oxfordian to Kimmeridgian. Advanced oceanic nappe-loading caused platform drowning below the CCD during the Tithonian, which is documented by intercalations of reefal turbidites with non-carbonate radiolarites. Radiolarites and bypass-turbidites, consisting of siliciclastic greywacke, terminate the platform succession beneath the emplaced oceanic nappe during late Tithonian to Valanginian time.

The Pelagonian stratigraphy of the Internal Hellenides consists of a Permo-Triassic basement and an Upper Triassic and Jurassic carbonate platform formation that has been overthrust by the Eohellenic ophiolite sheet during the Early Cretaceous. Intensive erosion, during the Cretaceous, removed most of the ophiolite and parts of the Jurassic formation. It is hypothesised that uplift and erosion of eastern Pelagonia was triggered by the break-off of the subducted oceanic leading edge of the Pelagonian plate. An investigation of the rocks that succeed the erosional unconformity shows that they constitute a shear-zone that is tectonically overlain by Cretaceous platform carbonates. Geochemical analyses of the shear-zone rocks substantiate that they are of mid-oceanic ridge and island arc provenience. Eastern Pelagonia collided with a Cretaceous carbonate platform, probably the Paikon forearc basin, as the Almopias ocean crust subducted beneath that island–arc complex. The Cretaceous platform, together with a substrate of sheared-off ocean floor mélange, overthrust eastern Pelagonia as subduction continued, and the substrate was dynamically metamorphosed into cataclastic rocks, mylonite, phyllonite and interpreted pseudotachylite. This complex of Cretaceous platform rocks and a brittle-ductile shear-zone-substrate constitute the here named Paikon–Palouki nappe, which was emplaced during Early Palaeocene. The Paikon–Palouki nappe did not reach Evvoia. Seismic tomographic models of the Aegean region apparently depict images of two broken-off ocean-plate-slabs, interpreted as Almopias-lithosphere-slabs. It is concluded that the western Almopias slab began to sink during the Early Cretaceous, while the eastern Almopias slab broke off and sank after the Paikon–Palouki nappe was emplaced in the Early Palaeocene.