Buckling an orogen: The Cantabrian Orocline

[摘要] ThePaleozoic Variscan orogeny was a large-scale collisional event that involved amalgamationof multiple continents and micro-continents. Available structural, geological, geochemical,and geophysical data from Iberia are consistent with a model of oroclinal bendingat the lithospheric scale of an originally near-linear convergent margin duringthe last stages of Variscan deformation in the late Paleozoic. Closure of the RheicOcean resulted in E-W shortening (in present-day coordinates) in the Carboniferous,producing a near linear N-S–trending, east-verging orogenic belt. Subsequent N-Sshortening near the Carboniferous-Permian boundary resulted in oroclinal bending,highlighted by the formation of the Cantabrian Orocline. Together, these data constrainoroclinal bending in Iberia to have occurred during the latest Carboniferous overabout a 10-million-year time window, which agrees well with recent geodynamicalmodels and structural data that relate oroclinal bending with lithospheric delaminationin the Variscan. This late-stage orogenic event remains an enigmatic part of finalPangaea amalgamation.

[学科分类] 地质学

[关键词] Fire safety;fatal fires;smoke alarms