The Variscan Deformation Front (VDF) in Northwest Germany and Its Relation to a Network of Geological Features Including the Ore-Rich Harz Mountains and the European Alpine Belt

The crustal basement of Northwest Germany can be interpreted as an “Avalonian Terrane Assemblage” subdivided by a roughly NW-SE (Hercynian) and SW-NE (Rhenish) running horst and graben system. In Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous times, this assemblage was flooded by the sea and mainly marine carbonates were deposited on the horsts and Stillwater shales in the grabens, as interpretable through magnetotelluric measurements. During the Late Carboniferous Variscan Orogeny, this terrain became the coal-rich foreland of the colliding Rhenohercynian belt. The shale-filled grabens reacted through folding and thrusting with different anticlinal patterns, the main carbonate covered horst in a still unknown way. This horst was the location of the Late Carboniferous basin center and of the inverted oil-rich Mesozoic Lower Saxony Basin (southwestern sector), respectively, with the so-called Bramsche Massif therein. It probably acted as an indenter for the evolution of the Variscan ore-rich Harz Mountains and forced the approaching Rhenohercynian orogen to stack the appropriate tectonic nappes by horizontal shortening to very high altitudes and the root into large depths. Based on seismic evidence this root is still an uncompleted crust/mantle transition zone with a deep reflection seismic and petrological Moho and a shallower hardly reflecting refraction seismic velocity Moho. The alternative, partly unsolved location of the Variscan Deformation Front in Northwest Germany may represent the new findings. The results may be supported by a comparison with features of the northern Alpine deformation belt.

The North-South Seismic Belt： Vertical Deformation Velocity Gradient Research

The vertical deformation gradient can reflect the rate of vertical change in unit distance,and the vertical deformation velocity gradient can reflect the strength of the earth's crust tectonic activities. In this paper,using long period leveling data combined with GPS data,the vertical deformation gradient values are calculated. Leveling data and GPS data are two different means of monitoring deformation,but the result is approximately the same vertical deformation gradient. The results show that the spatial distribution of the vertical deformation velocity gradient and tectonic distribution has an obvious correlation. The most significant gradient anomalies along the North-South Seismic Belt are Xianshuihe fault, Longmenshan fault and Xiaojiang-Zemuhe fault, while the second gradient anomalies in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan plateau are Zhuanglanghe fault and Lenglongling fault. The Menyuan M_S6. 4 earthquake in 2016 occurred in this abnormal area. However,according to the vertical deformation high gradient area distribution,there is also the possibility of an earthquake occurrence in the Tianzhu and Jingtai area.The area of convergence of three major fault zones is the strongest tectonically active region of the North-South Seismic Belt.