The Late Cretaceous Klepa basalts in Macedonia (FYROM)— Constraints on the final stage of Tethys closure in the Balkans

Prelevic, Dejan and Wehrheim, Simon and Reutter, Magnus and Boev, Blazo and Bozovic, Milica and Bogaard, Paul van den and Cvetkovic, Vladica and Schmid, Stefan M. (2017) The Late Cretaceous Klepa basalts in Macedonia (FYROM)— Constraints on the final stage of Tethys closure in the Balkans. Terra Nova, 29. pp. 145-153.

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Abstract

The waning stage(s) of the Tethyan ocean(s) in the Balkans are not well understood.
Controversy centres on the origin and life-span of the Cretaceous Sava Zone, which
is allegedly a remnant of the last oceanic domain in the Balkan Peninsula, defining
the youngest suture between Eurasia- and Adria-derived plates. In order to investigate
to what extent Late-Cretaceous volcanism within the Sava Zone is consistent
with this model we present new age data together with trace-element and Sr–Nd–
Pb isotope data for the Klepa basaltic lavas from the central Balkan Peninsula. Our
new geochemical data show marked differences between the Cretaceous Klepa
basalts (Sava Zone) and the rocks of other volcanic sequences from the Jurassic
ophiolites of the Balkans. The Klepa basalts mostly have Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic and
trace-element signatures that resemble enriched within-plate basalts substantially
different from Jurassic ophiolite basalts with MORB, BAB and IAV affinities. Traceelement
modelling of the Klepa rocks indicates 2%–20% polybaric melting of a relatively
homogeneously metasomatised mantle source that ranges in composition
from garnet lherzolite to ilmenite+apatite bearing spinel–amphibole lherzolite. Thus,
the residual mineralogy is characteristic of a continental rather than oceanic lithospheric
mantle source, suggesting an intracontinental within-plate origin for the
Klepa basalts. Two alternative geodynamic models are internally consistent with our
new findings: (1) if the Sava Zone represents remnants of the youngest Neotethyan
Ocean, magmatism along this zone would be situated within the forearc region and
triggered by ridge subduction; (2) if the Sava Zone delimits a diffuse tectonic boundary
between Adria and Europe which had already collided in the Late Jurassic, the
Klepa basalts together with a number of other magmatic centres represent volcanism
related to transtensional tectonics.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Natural sciences > Earth and related environmental sciences
Engineering and Technology > Other engineering and technologies
Natural sciences > Other natural sciences
Divisions: Faculty of Natural and Technical Sciences
Depositing User: Biljana Kosturanova
Date Deposited: 22 May 2017 14:01
Last Modified: 22 May 2017 14:01
URI: https://eprints.ugd.edu.mk/id/eprint/17811

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