Thermal evolution in the exhumed basement of a stratovolcano: case study of the Miocene Mátra Volcano, Pannonian Basin

Abstract

The thermal influence of a Miocene stratovolcano (Mátra Volcano) on its basement was studied by apatite and zircon (U–Th)/He thermochronometry. The pre-Miocene substratum of the volcano contains Mesozoic sedimentary units in addition to the nearby exhumed igneous Recsk Complex. The Oligocene emplacement age of the Recsk Complex is constrained by zircon U–Pb geochronology to be 29.6 Ma, which serves as a benchmark for the beginning of its thermal history. All measured apatite (U–Th)/He ages (19.9–5.9 Ma) and most of the zircon (U–Th)/He ages (26.2–17.7 Ma) are considerably younger than the emplacement age of the Oligocene Recsk Complex, implying thermal overprinting by the adjacent Miocene Mátra Volcano. The apatite and zircon He ages of the Oligocene complex increase from south to north, providing clear evidence of a northwards-weakening thermal overprint. The post-Oligocene thermal history of the basement was reconstructed via one-dimensional subsidence/thermal modelling. According to zircon He modelling, the thickness of the covering units above the Recsk Complex was estimated to be 1000–1500 m and the heat flux was c. 200 mW m −2 during the Miocene volcanism. Thermal modelling based on apatite He data suggests that the Miocene volcanism was followed by intensive erosion and the exposure of the Recsk Complex by the Late Miocene. Supplementary material: The locality, petrography and age yield of the dated samples of the Recsk Igneous Complex and details of the laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry dating of zircons from the Recsk Complex are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4127444

Late Cretaceous to Paleogene exhumation in Central Europe – localized inversion vs. large-scale domal uplift

“…10), which expresses the probability of failing the null hypothesis that the model and data are different (Ketcham, 2005). A detailed description of the two-step modeling procedure is given in Arató et al (2018). Figure 10 shows the relation of the missing burial and the heat flow calculated for a sample from the Thuringian Forest and the WFW region.…”

Evolution of deformation mechanism and fluid flow in two pre-rift siliciclastic deposits (Pannonian Basin, Hungary)

“…The ongoing subsidence reached its maximum around 8 Ma (~1.5 km), ~10 Ma after the rift initiation. This was followed by neotectonic inversion, uplift (Arató et al, 2019) and denudation, but these left little trace in the study sites.…”

Late Cretaceous to Paleogene exhumation in central Europe – localized inversion vs. large-scale domal uplift

“…For instance, shortening structures of small magnitude are widespread in the German uplands. Mesozoic structures in the Southern Permian Basin and the northern Alpine Molasse basin are sealed by an extensive cover of locally latest Cretaceous but mostly Cenozoic sediments (Bachmann et al, 1987;Baldschuhn et al, 2001;Krzywiec and Stachowska, 2016;Voigt et al, 2021).…”

“…In Germany, uplift and erosion in Mesozoic and/or Cenozoic time are evidenced by large areas where the Variscan basement and Permian to Triassic strata are exposed today. The Rhenish and Bohemian massifs are commonly interpreted as long-lived highs that never had a substantial cover of Permo-Mesozoic sediments (Ziegler, 1990), although this model has been recently challenged for parts of the Rhenish Massif (Augustsson et al, 2018). Between these massifs, Triassic strata were continuous from northern to southern Germany (Fig.…”

“…10), which expresses the probability of failing the null hypothesis that the model and data are different (Ketcham, 2005). A detailed description of the two-step modelling procedure is given in Arató et al (2018). Figure 10 shows the relation of the missing burial and the heat flow calculated for a sample from the Thuringian Forest and the WFW region.…”