Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic basin inversion and palaeostress fields in the North Atlantic-western Alpine-Tethys realm: Implications for intraplate tectonics

Abstract

Intraplate basin/structural inversion (indicating tectonic shortening) is a good marker of ("far-field") tectonic stress regime changes that are linked to plate geometries and interactions, a premise that is qualitatively well-established in the literature. There is also quantitative evidence that Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene inversion of sedimentary basins in north-central Europe was explicitly driven by an intraplate, relaxational response to forces developed during rapid reconfigurations of the Alpine-Tethys (Europe-Africa) convergent plate boundary. Although with a degree of temporal ambiguity, three main periods of intraplate tectonics (marked primarily by structural inversion in initially extensional sedimentary basins) are indicated in the North Atlantic-western Alpine-Tethys realm. These are in the Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene, the Eocene-Oligocene and the Miocene. Examples recording these periods are primarily interpreted seismic reflection profiles (of varying quality and resolution) from the published literature. Additional examples where seismic data are not present, but timing constraints are robust from other observations, have also been considered. The schematic distribution and orientation of the literature-compiled intraplate inversion structures are compared to the model palaeostress fields derived from Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene, Eocene-Oligocene and Miocene tectonic reconstructions of the North Atlantic-western Alpine-Tethys realm. The modelled palaeostress fields include geopotential effects from palaeobathymetry and palaeotopography of the Earth's surface as well as laterally variable lithosphere and crustal palaeothicknesses but do not include any component of the stress field produced by processes occurring at contiguous convergent plate margins. The former satisfactorily provides the background stress field of most of the Earth's plate interiors and it is inferred that the latter is paramount in producing "stress trauma" in the interior of plates resulting in permanent intraplate deformation such as basin inversion.

An investigation of how intracratonic rifting is “seeded”: Case study of the Late Devonian Dniepr-Donets Basin rift within the East European Craton

“…Order of magnitude calculations suggest that these GPE-generated extensional horizontal deviatoric stresses are in the range 10-20 MPa in the crust of the DOBRE profile in the area of the gravity low. This is a similar magnitude to those computed regionally, but more rigorously, in plate-scale structural models (e.g., Nielsen et al, 2014;Schiffer and Nielsen, 2016;Stephenson et al, 2020). Such a magnitude is less than the strength of the crust computed for cold, cratonic lithosphere on the basis of maximum shear stress in rheological strength diagrams (e.g., Ranalli and Murphy, 1987;cf.…”

“…Having an inherited structural heterogeneity or "zone of weakness" is not in itself sufficient to later produce an intracratonic rift zone; it will also be necessary to have the right kind of intraplate tectonic stress fieldorientated favourably as well as large enoughto result in its reactivation. The "right kind" of intraplate tectonic stress field consists in part by stresses generated by "tectonic" forces, caused by whatever geodynamic process is driving rifting, and in part by those derived from variations in geopotential energy (GPE) of the lithosphere (e.g., Coblentz et al, 1994;Nielsen et al, 2014;Stephenson et al, 2020). GPE is defined as the integrated lithostatic pressure in a given rock column and varies from place to place depending on density variations within the lithosphere, including variations in topography, laterally varying crustal structure, including sediment thickness and Moho depth, and lithosphere thickness (e.g., Schiffer and Nielsen, 2016).…”

Evolution of a low convergence collisional orogen: a review of Pyrenean orogenesis

“…During the Late Cretaceous, inversion and shortening affected many Mesozoic rift systems across a broad area from Africa to the North Sea in response to the onset of Europe-Iberia-Africa convergence (Fig. 2; Dèzes et al, 2004;Nielsen et al, 2005;Ziegler and Dèzes, 2006;Kley and Voigt, 2008;Lamotte et al, 2011;Jolivet et al, 2016;Stephenson et al, 2020;Mouthereau et al, 2021). Within this area, inversion of the Pyrenean rift accommodated only a small component of Africa-Europe plate convergence (see Sect.…”

Deformation Analysis in the Barents Sea in Relation to Paleogene Transpression Along the Greenland‐Eurasia Plate Boundary

“…For example, using a rigid elastic lithosphere numerical modeling approach, Pascal and Gabrielsen (2001) estimated the stress distribution on the Norwegian margin created by the Mid-Atlantic ridge push force. Schiffer and Nielsen (2016) and Stephenson et al (2020) used a thin sheet model of lithosphere with an elastic rheology to predict GPE-driven deviatoric stress in the North Atlantic and compared it with the World Stress Map data (Heidbach et al, 2010(Heidbach et al, , 2018. On the contrary, Flesch et al (2001Flesch et al ( , 2007 and Ghosh et al (2008Ghosh et al ( , 2009 modeled the continental lithosphere as a thin viscous sheet to estimate deviatoric stress resulting from various contributions such as GPE and mantle tractions.…”