The Western Alps' active tectonics is characterized by ongoing widespread extension in the highest parts of the belt and transpressive/compressive tectonics along its borders. We examine these contrasting tectonic regimes using a multidisciplinary approach including seismotectonics, numerical modeling, GPS, morphotectonics, fieldwork, and brittle deformation analysis. Extension appears to be the dominant process in the present-day tectonic activity in the Western Alps, affecting its internal areas all along the arc. Shortening, in contrast, is limited to small areas located along at the outer borders of the chain. Strike-slip is observed throughout the Alpine realm and in the foreland. The stress-orientation pattern is radial for r3 in the inner, extensional zones, and for r1 in the outer, transcurrent/tranpressional ones. Extensional areas can be correlated with the parts of the belt with the thickest crust. Quantification of seismic strain in tectonically homogeneous areas shows that only 10-20% of the geodesy-documented deformation can be explained by the Alpine seismicity. We propose that, Alpine active tectonics are ruled by isostasy/buoyancy forces rather than the ongoing shortening along the Alpine Europe/Adria collision zone. This interpretation is corroborated by numerical modeling. The Neogene extensional structures in the Alps formed under increasingly brittle conditions. A synthesis of paleostress tensors for the internal parts of the West-Alpine Arc documents major orogen-parallel extension with a continuous change in r3 directions from ENE-WSW in the Simplon area, to N-S in the Vanoise area and to NNW-SSE in the Briançon area. Minor orogen-perpendicular extension increases from N to S. This second signal correlates with the present-day geodynamics as revealed by focal-plane mechanisms analysis. The orogen-parallel extension could be related to the opening of the Ligurian Sea during the Early-Middle Miocene and to compression/ rotation of the Adriatic indenter inducing lateral extrusion.

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HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License

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International audienceFrom Early Miocene to the present-day the core parts of the western European Alps experienced brittle extensional deformations, mostly in a strike-parallel direction. Here we present new data constraining the brittle deformation of the Vanoise area (French Alps) and a synthesis of 312 paleostress tensors in the whole arc of the internal Western Alps. The data show a continuous change in the direction of extension, from N065° (Simplon area), to N-S (Vanoise area) and to NNW-SSE (Briançon area). The aboundance of orogen-perpendicular σ3 axes increases from the North to the South. In the Briançonnais area, an extensional reactivation of the Basal Penninic Thrust seems to be the origin of the E-W to NE-SW oriented σ3. In light of these new data and the regional paleostress synthesis, we propose a predominant orogen-parallel extension in the internal zone as a whole. This orogenparallel extension is related to the indentation/rotation of the Apulian microplate and to the opening of the Ligurian Sea during the Lower-Middle Miocene. The locally observed orogen-perpendicular extension is interpreted as an effect of the exhumation of the Internal Crystalline Massifs, the uplift of the External Crystalline Massifs and/or the present-day geodynamics (post-orogenic gravitational collapse). Some transcurrent tectonics, older than the extension in the Valais area, and younger than the extension further South is observed in the entire inner Western Alps; strike-slip movements are correlated with the Apulian rotation and local permutation of stress axes

ABSTRACT:Geological planar facets (stratification, fault, joint…) are key features to unravel the tectonic history of rock outcrop or appreciate the stability of a hazardous rock cliff. Measuring their spatial attitude (dip and strike) is generally performed by hand with a compass/clinometer, which is time consuming, requires some degree of censoring (i.e. refusing to measure some features judged unimportant at the time), is not always possible for fractures higher up on the outcrop and is somewhat hazardous. 3D virtual geological outcrop hold the potential to alleviate these issues. Efficiently segmenting massive 3D point clouds into individual planar facets, inside a convenient software environment was lacking. FACETS is a dedicated plugin within CloudCompare v2.6.2 (http://cloudcompare.org/) implemented to perform planar facet extraction, calculate their dip and dip direction (i.e. azimuth of steepest decent) and report the extracted data in interactive stereograms. Two algorithms perform the segmentation: Kd-Tree and Fast Marching. Both divide the point cloud into sub-cells, then compute elementary planar objects and aggregate them progressively according to a planeity threshold into polygons. The boundaries of the polygons are adjusted around segmented points with a tension parameter, and the facet polygons can be exported as 3D polygon shapefiles towards third party GIS software or simply as ASCII comma separated files. One of the great features of FACETS is the capability to explore planar objects but also 3D points with normals with the stereogram tool. Poles can be readily displayed, queried and manually segmented interactively. The plugin blends seamlessly into CloudCompare to leverage all its other 3D point cloud manipulation features. A demonstration of the tool is presented to illustrate these different features. While designed for geological applications, FACETS could be more widely applied to any planar objects.For further details: http://www.cloudcompare.org/doc/wiki/index.php?title=Facets_%28plugin%29

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

The contrasted seismotectonic regime of the Western Alps is characterized by radial extension in the high chain, combined with local compressive areas at the foothill of the belt, and everywhere occurrence of transcurrent tectonics. Here, we compare this seismotectonic regime to a large-scale compilation of GPS measurements in the Western Alpine realm. Our analysis is based on the raw GPS database, which give the measured velocity field with respect to the so called "stable Europe", and an interpolated velocity field, in order to smooth the database on a more regular mesh. Both strain rate and rotational components of the deformation are investigated. The strain rate field shows patch-like structure, with extensional areas located in the core and to the North of the belt and compressional areas located in its periphery. Although the GPS deformation fields (both raw and interpolated) are more spatially variable than the seismotectonic field, a good qualitative correlation is established with the seismotectonic regionalization of the deformation. The rotation rate fields (both raw and interpolated) present counterclockwise rotations in the innermost part of the belt and a surprising continuous zone of clockwise rotations following the arc-shape geometry of the Western Alps along their external border. We interpret this new result in term of a counterclockwise rotation of the Apulia plate with respect to the stable Europe. This tectonic scheme may induce clockwise rotations of crustal block along the large strike-slip fault system, which runs in the outer part of the belt, from the Rhône-Simplon fault to the Belledonne fault and Southeastward, to the High-Durance and Argentera fault.