“…Yet, such insights are of critical importance for reconstructing the causal relationships between orogenic events and the basinal stratigraphic response. In the recent years, advances in isotopic provenance tracing techniques, including detrital mica 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating (e.g., von Eynatten et al, 1999;von Eynatten and Wijbrans, 2003), zircon fission track dating of detrital clasts (Spiegel et al, 2000), detrital garnet and epidote geochemical analysis (Spiegel et al, 2002;Stutenbecker et al, 2019), and detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology (e.g., Malusà et al, 2016;Anfinson et al, 2016;Lu et al, 2018;Sharman et al, 2018a) have offered more quantitative links to Alpine geodynamic processes, revealed through seismic tomography imaging (Lippitsch et al, 2003;Fry et al, 2010;Hetényi et al, 2018) or bedrock geochronology (synthesized by Boston et al, 2017). In this study, we integrate high-density U-Pb and trace and rare-earth element analysis of detrital zircon from the late-Eocene to mid-Miocene stratigraphic record of the Swiss Molasse Basin to elucidate the tectonic activity and unroofing history of the Central Alps.…”