Messinian-Zanclean canyons in the Digne nappe (southwestern Alps): tectonic implications

Hippolyte, Jean-Claude; Clauzon, Georges; Suc, Jean Pierre

doi:10.2113/gssgfbull.182.2.111

Cited by 15 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The upper high terrace between 166 and 376 m above river level or a mean gradient of 0.0089 over 30 km. This is slightly higher than recorded elsewhere (0.008) [16,17]. Terraces north of the Bléone vary from 129 to 142 m above the river base where gradients similar to the present river.…”

Section: -158 Kmcontrasting

confidence: 48%

“…The Valensole Plateau surface (Upper High Terrace) is 1 to 1.7 My old [15][16][17] and has a tectonically induced gradient (0.008), somewhat less than that suggested in this paper. This is well above the 0.003 gradient of the main river, which persists to Avignon, as well as across the Crau plains ( fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

“…The reach between Mirabeau and Sisteron has the complete range of terraces revealing increased elevations upstream. This reach attracted earlier terrace studies [43,49,50] and it has been affected by recent tectonics [16,17,24,38,[51][52][53][67][68][69][70][71][72].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5). In this area, south of Chateau Arnoux, the middle terrace becomes a dominant form with higher, older terraces confined to low dissected ridge tops and the summit of the Valensole Plateau [16,17] Fig. 4b.…”

Section: -158 Kmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A morphological study of Durance River terraces from Tallard to Avignon, South-East France

Warner

2012

Open Geosciences

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AbstractThis study of Durance River terrace morphologies in the lower 200 km of the valley shows that terrace ages, elevations and heights above the river generally all increase upstream. It is based on extensive fieldwork checked against geological maps and memoirs. Subdivision of the valley, based on gorges and former tectonic blockages, is relevant because there are no Durance terraces downstream of Mallemort and there are considerable differences between each reach. For most of the Pleistocene, the river was diverted through the Crau Plains to the sea. Below the Mirabeau gorge, there are a few narrow low and middle terraces. The best terrace development is between Mirabeau and the Sisteron defile. Upstream of that barrier there is glacial dominance. Changes in terrace continuity are illustrated by means of height-range diagrams and their rates of dissection have been quantified approximately, based on cosmic ray exposure age modelling. Climate forcing cannot explain all the changes found. The influence of tectonic activity was found to increase in an upstream direction and also with age on the southwestern flanks of the Alps.

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Section: -158 Kmcontrasting

confidence: 48%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: -158 Kmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A morphological study of Durance River terraces from Tallard to Avignon, South-East France

Warner

2012

Open Geosciences

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“…A few samples have been collected in continental lacustrine, fluvial or lagoonal deposits. Thirty-two new samples from 10 localities complete an existing dataset of 83 samples from 14 localities (Bessedik, 1985;Zheng and Cravatte, 1986;Zheng, 1990;Jiménez-Moreno, 2005;Suc et al, 1999;Hippolyte et al, 2011;Dubar, 1979). The total dataset thus contains data from 24 localities ranging from Late Eocene to Lower-Middle Pleistocene and distributed spatially on both flanks of the southwestern Alps ( Fig.…”

Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the Eocene to Pleistocene topographic evolution of the southwestern Alps, France and Italy

Fauquette

Bernet

Suc

et al. 2015

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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We evaluate the topographic evolution of the southwestern Alps using Eocene to Pleistocene pollen data combined with existing sedimentological, petrographic and detrital geo-and thermochronological data. We report 32 new pollen analyses from 10 sites completed by an existing dataset of 83 samples from 14 localities situated across the southwestern Alps, including both the pro-and the retro-foreland basins. The presence of microthermic tree pollen (mainly Abies, Picea) indicates that this part of the mountain belt attained elevations over 1900 m as early as the Oligocene. Inferred rapid surface uplift during the mid-Oligocene coincided with a previously documented brief phase of rapid erosional exhumation, when maximum erosion rates may have reached values of up to 1.5-2 km/Myr. Slower long-term average exhumation rates of ∼0.3 km/Myr since the Late Oligocene helped maintaining the high Alpine topography of the southwestern Alps until today. The relative abundances of meso-microthermic tree pollen (Cathaya, Cedrus and Tsuga) and microthermic tree pollen (Abies, Picea) in the pro-and retroforeland basin deposits, indicate that the present-day asymmetric topography, with a relatively gentle western flank and steeper eastern flank, was established early in the southwestern Alps, at least since ✩ Author contributions: All co-authors participated in writing the paper, in which S. Fauquette, J.-P. Suc, M. Bernet, S. Guillot and P. van der Beek took the lead. S. Fauquette performed the climatic and paleoelevation quantification based on pollen data; J.-S. Suc performed pollen counting on mosses and sediments and participated in field campaigns; A.S. Grosjean participated in field campaigns and worked on sediment provenance data; M. Bernet, S. Guillot, P. van der Beek, S. Jourdan, B. Pittet, P. Tricart, S. Schwartz participated in field campaigns; S.-M. Popescu performed pollen counting on mosses and participated in field campaigns; G. Jiménez-Moreno, A. Bertini and E. Roche performed pollen counting on sediments; Z. Zheng worked on the distribution of the taxon Cathaya and its ecological preferences; G. Pavia participated in field campaigns and sampling of mosses for modern pollen data; V. Gardien participated in sampling of mosses for modern pollen data.S. Fauquette et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 412 (2015) 220-234 221 the Early Miocene, and possibly since the Oligocene or Late Eocene. Therefore, the high topography and asymmetric morphology of this part of the Alps has been maintained throughout the past ∼30 Ma.

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Unraveling the eroded units of mountain belts using RSCM thermometry and cross-section balancing: example of the southwestern French Alps

Balansa

Lahfid²,

Espurt³

et al. 2022

Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch)

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Reconstruction of eroded mountain belt structures is crucial to produce valid precontractional palinspastic restorations and quantify the amount of shortening. In this study, we combine Raman Spectroscopy of Carbonaceous Material (RSCM) thermometry and cross-section balancing technique to propose a reconstruction of the thermal and deformational evolution of the Subalpine Digne Nappe in the southwestern French Alps. We sampled Mesozoic to Cenozoic sedimentary strata for RSCM thermometry analyses along the ~4-km-thick Digne Nappe to calculate maximum temperatures (T RSCM ). T RSCM values range from 243±10°C to 349±13°C in the upper Triassic-upper Cretaceous strata and from 255±19°C to 328±8°C in the overlying upper Eocene-lower Oligocene strata. T RSCM values show a gradual increase with depth and towards the inner part of the orogen. These results are consistent with a ~28±4°C/km modeled thermal gradient in the ~4-km-thick Digne Nappe 2 and suggest post Oligocene burial of the Digne Nappe under sedimentary/tectonic units that have been removed by erosion. Palinspastic restoration of a NE-trending and 65-km-long cross-section (Digne-Barcelonnette transect) constrained by thermal data supports the interpretation that the Digne Nappe involved a ~3-km-thick middle/upper Eocene-Oligocene to lower Miocene foreland basin tectonically overlain by the 3-to 11-km-thick Embrunais-Ubaye flysch nappes. The front of the Embrunais-Ubaye nappes was located ~40 km beyond its present erosional front. The amount of southwestward shortening in the Subalpine thrust wedge derived from palinspastic restoration is about 35 km (35%) over the past ~16 million years. Removal of a substantial volume of the southwestern Alpine orogen may have significantly influenced the dynamics of the Subalpine thrust wedge and Valensole foreland basin since the Middle Miocene.

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Messinian-Zanclean canyons in the Digne nappe (southwestern Alps): tectonic implications

Cited by 15 publications

References 43 publications

A morphological study of Durance River terraces from Tallard to Avignon, South-East France

A morphological study of Durance River terraces from Tallard to Avignon, South-East France

Quantifying the Eocene to Pleistocene topographic evolution of the southwestern Alps, France and Italy

Unraveling the eroded units of mountain belts using RSCM thermometry and cross-section balancing: example of the southwestern French Alps

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