Gravitational collapse of the continental crust: definition, regimes and modes

Rey, Patrice; Vanderhaeghe, Olivier; Teyssier, Christian

doi:10.1016/s0040-1951(01)00174-3

Cited by 440 publications

(263 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The extensional collapse in NW Iberia fits the fixed-boundary collapse described by Rey et al (2001). In our case, the activation of extensional detachments accounts for the upper crustal tectonic denudation and crustal attenuation above the Padró n migmatitic dome (e.g., Brun and Van Den Driessche 1994).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Faults related with extensional tectonics and crustal thinning are common structures related to the gravitational collapse of a thickened continental crust (Coney and Harms 1984;Platt 1986;Malavieille 1987;Dewey 1988;Lister and Davis 1989;Platt and England 1994;Ruppel 1995;Rey et al 2001). The faults are synchronous with flat-lying ductile shearing, attenuate previous and coeval tectonometamorphic gradients, and are associated with low-pressure/high-temperature metamorphism and with partial melting of deep structural levels, which gives rise to the formation of migmatitic domes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NW Iberia forms part of the axial zone of the Variscan belt, where extensive synkinematic magmatism occurs. From a regional point of view, this area represents the decoupling of the extending upper crust from the lower crust (Rey et al 2001) and a weak crustal section prone to assume significant plate interaction during the late stages of collision. The area was bounded by the two main landmasses involved in the collision (Gondwana and Laurussia), whose extension-free domains would define the boundaries of a virtual along-strike megashear zone ( fig.…”

Section: Tectonic Implications For the Iberian Massif And For Plate Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gravitydriven tectonic flow may develop at any time in collisional belts. However, extensional collapse caused by thermal disequilibrium requires significant crustal thickening (Rey et al 2001 and references therein), which is usually reached once the boundaries of the involved continents are sealed, blocking most of the along-strike displacement through the suture zone. In this article, the kinematic analysis of the structures developed during the extensional collapse is explored as an additional tool to set previous plate convergence vectors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extensional Flow during Gravitational Collapse: A Tool for Setting Plate Convergence (Padrón Migmatitic Dome, Variscan Belt, NW Iberia)

Fernández

Catalán

Barreiro

et al. 2012

The Journal of Geology

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A B S T R A C TPlate convergence analysis in collisional orogens is usually based on the study of major contractional structures and strike-slip shear zones. Here we show how the structural analysis of extensional structures may report the regional or far stress field during relatively local, gravity-driven extensional collapse of a thickened continental crust and how this information may be used to constrain the broad vectors of plate convergence at that time. The Padró n migmatitic dome is a synconvergent extensional system developed in the axial zone of the Variscan belt exposed in the NW part of the Iberian Massif of Spain. This system affected the allochthonous and autochthonous sequences involved in Pangaea's assembly in Southern Europe. It includes three major extensional shear zones, which have been analyzed in detail to provide a wide ground data set for the discussion of the proposed model. The tectonic flow in the Padró n migmatitic dome and in other coeval structures is characterized by vectors ranging from parallel to oblique, in the latter case with a counterclockwise azimuth in relation to the trend of the orogenic belt. Our model suggests that the extensional collapse of the Variscan belt in NW Iberia would have developed if the convergence between Gondwana and Laurussia had not stopped and that it would have included a dextral component.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Tectonic Implications For the Iberian Massif And For Plate Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Extensional Flow during Gravitational Collapse: A Tool for Setting Plate Convergence (Padrón Migmatitic Dome, Variscan Belt, NW Iberia)

Fernández

Catalán

Barreiro

et al. 2012

The Journal of Geology

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“…Negative inversion of compressional structures has been documented in several orogenic domains (Rey et al 2001, Israel et al 2013, Wang et al 2014. In many situations, they have been attributed to the gravitational collapse that affects systems in more advanced phases of their evolution.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tectonic inversion of compressional structures in the Southern portion of the Paramirim Corridor, Bahia, Brazil

et al. 2015

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ABSTRACT:The Paramirim Corridor represents the maximum inversion zone of the Paramirim Aulacogen. Reverse-to-reverse dextral shear zones and various types of folds dominate such corridor. These structures reflect a stress field that is WSW-ENE oriented, developed in units of Aulacogen basement, as well as in the Lagoa Real Intrusive Suite, of Statherian age, in Espinhaço and São Francisco supergroups, of Statherian-Tonian and Cryogenian ages, respectively, and in the Macaúbas-Santo Onofre Group, of Tonian age at the most. A rich collection of extensional structures truncate compressional structures of the Paramirim Corridor, characterized by normal shear zones and foliation, which is sometimes mylonitic, down-dip stretching lineation, drag folds, traction fractures and S/C structures. In these shear zones, quartz occurs truncated by the foliation, while feldspars are fractured and altered to white mica. Distribution of the quartz c-axes is at a maximum of 14° from the Z-axis. Thus, it suggests that the deformation activated mainly the basal glide planes in the direction. The paleostress study using the Win-Tensor software demonstrated that the regimen ranged between radial and pure distention. The S 1 direction oscillated around a vertical trend, while s 3 was sub-horizontal, with a predominant N230-050° direction. Ar-Ar ages in biotite obtained from the extensional shear zones ranged from 480 and 490 Ma. Together, data obtained for the structures associated with the late extensional regimen described in the present study suggest that its nucleation is associated with distal and brittle-ductile sectors of the gravitational collapse zone of Araçuaí-West Congo Orogen.KEYWORDS: Shear Zone; Paramirim Corridor; Gravitational Collapse. RESUMO: O Corredor do Paramirim representa a zona de máxima inversão do Aulacógeno do Paramirim, no qual predominam zonas de cisalhamento reversas-reversas destrais e vários tipos de dobras. Essas estruturas refletem um campo de tensão segundo WSW-ENE, os quais se desenvolvem nas unidades de embasamento do Aulacógeno, assim como na Suíte Intrusiva Lagoa Real, de idade estateriana, nos supergrupos Espinhaço e São Francisco, de idades estateriana-toniana e criogeniana, respectivamente, bem como no grupo Macaúbas-Santo

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The weight of the mountains: Constraints on tectonic stress, friction, and fluid pressure in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake from estimates of topographic loading

Styron

Hetland

2015

JGR Solid Earth

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Citation:Styron, R. H., and E. A. Hetland (2015), The weight of the mountains: Constraints on tectonic stress, friction, and fluid pressure in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake from estimates of topographic loading, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 120, 2697-2716, doi:10.1002 Abstract Though it is widely recognized that large mountain ranges produce significant stresses in the Earth's crust, these stresses are not commonly quantified. Nonetheless, near large mountains topography may affect fault activity by changing the stress balance on the faults. In this work, we calculate the stress field from topography in the Longmen Shan (Sichuan, China) and resolve those stresses on several models of the faults that ruptured in the 2008 M w 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake. We find that the topography results in shear stresses up to 20 MPa and normal stresses up to 80 MPa on the faults, with significant variability across the faults. Topographic stresses generally load the fault in a normal and left-lateral shear sense, opposite to the inferred coseismic slip sense, and thus inhibit the coseismic slip. We estimate the tectonic stress needed to overcome topographic and lithostatic stresses by assuming that the direction of maximum shear accumulated on the faults is roughly collinear with the inferred coseismic slip. We further estimate the static friction and pore fluid pressure assuming that the fault was, on average, at Mohr-Coulomb failure at the time of the Wenchuan earthquake. We use a Bayesian inversion strategy, yielding posterior probability distributions for the estimated parameters. We find most likely estimates of maximum tectonic compressive stress near 0.6 gz and oriented ∼E-W, and minimum tectonic stress near 0.2 gz. Static friction on the fault is near 0.2, and pore fluid pressure is between 0 and 0.4 of the total pressure.

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Gravitational collapse of the continental crust: definition, regimes and modes

Cited by 440 publications

References 64 publications

Extensional Flow during Gravitational Collapse: A Tool for Setting Plate Convergence (Padrón Migmatitic Dome, Variscan Belt, NW Iberia)

Extensional Flow during Gravitational Collapse: A Tool for Setting Plate Convergence (Padrón Migmatitic Dome, Variscan Belt, NW Iberia)

Tectonic inversion of compressional structures in the Southern portion of the Paramirim Corridor, Bahia, Brazil

The weight of the mountains: Constraints on tectonic stress, friction, and fluid pressure in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake from estimates of topographic loading

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