The Variscan orogeny in Chios (Greece): Carboniferous accretion along a Palaeotethyan active margin

• Published in: Terra nova (Oxford, England) Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 213 - 223
• Main Authors: Zanchi, A., Garzanti, E., Larghi, C., Angiolini, L., Gaetani, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 01.06.2003
• ISSN: 0954-4879; 1365-3121
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-3121.2003.00483.x

ABSTRACT New stratigraphic and structural data on the turbiditic succession of Chios (Volissos turbidites) suggest that this clastic wedge formed during the Early Carboniferous. These turbidites, fed long‐distance by erosion of the Variscan orogen, were most likely deposited in a Palaeotethyan remnant‐ocean basin. They were severely deformed and structurally thickened at anchi‐metamorphic conditions before the close of the Palaeozoic. Both contractional and layer‐parallel extensional structures, high strain rates, and broken‐in‐matrix fabrics along thick shear zones may suggest deformation at the toe of an accretionary wedge. Stratigraphic, petrographic and structural data indicate that Chios represents the westernmost part of Palaeotethys which escaped the Carboniferous collision between Gondwana and Laurasia, but received great volumes of terrigenous sediments from the Variscan belt, favouring the growth of a large accretionary prism.