摘要
The tectono-paleogeograhic inheritance of barely documented Paleotethyan influence on the Southern Carpathian-Balkan belt is herein reappraised to highlight complex processes occurring along an alternative branched configuration of Triassic fossil subduction zone interfaces.The absence of Paleotethyan oceanic accretionary complexes,and the unavailability of rocks returned from poorly traceable Triassic subduction zones allow no conventional insights into its internal structure.In contrast,the adjoining Dinarides and investigated western Southern Carpathian-Balkan belt contain metamorphic rocks ejected from the precursory Late Paleozoic Paleotethyan active margin.An inventory and reappraisal of Variscan and Cimmerian imprints,far-field effects place the peri-Moesian Southern Carpathian-Balkan belt into the overriding plate position above the Triassic Paleotethyan active margin.Ongoing Permian–Early Triassic dragging of underlying Paleotethyan crustal material beneath external segments of the continental margin is contemporaneous with the onset and formation of several episutural back-arc oceans.These include the Maliac Ocean with a here introduced NNW-SSE striking Lower–Middle Triassic marginal shallow-water clastic-carbonate basin of Getic Unit(Gornjak nappe)that is spatially in line with the“Volvi-Therma”western Rhodope aborted Triassic rift system.The carbonate platform deposition was interrupted by a change in the geodynamic regime at the end of the Middle Triassic(inducing mild compressional deformations and the regional uplift resulting in missing of Upper Triassic sediments).The constraints on the investigated sequences yield that the lagged Paleotethyan closure in the Balkan sector occurred during the late Ladinian-Carnian interval.
