Abstract The continental crust extends in a brittle manner in its upper part and in more distributed (ductile) manner in its lower part. During exhumation of HP metamorphic rocks, brittle features superimpose on earlier ductile ones as a result of the progressive localization of deformation. The islands of Tinos and Andros are part of the numerous metamorphic core complexes exhumed in the Aegean domain. They illustrate two steps of a gradient of finite extension along a transect between Mt. Olympos and Naxos. This study confirms the main role of boudinage as an initial localizing factor at the brittle–ductile transition and emphasizes the continuum of strain from ductile to brittle during exhumation. Early low-angle semi-brittle shear planes superimpose onto precursory ductile shear bands, whereas steeply dipping late brittle planes develop by progressive steepening of structures or sliding across en echelon arrays of veins. The comparison between Tinos and Andros allows us to propose a complete dynamic section of the Aegean extending continental crust and emphasizes that the strain localization process depends on both its rheological stratification and its compositional heterogeneity.

The Nordfjord area, north of the Hornelen Devonian basin in Western Norway, is the southernmost part of the Ultra-High Pressure (UHP) Province, defined by the occurrence of coesite-bearing and diamond-bearing continental rocks. Compilation of structural, petrological, and chronological data from the area leads to a model for the formation of dome structures at the crustal scale and the behavior of the continental crust during its exhumation from mantle depths. The Nordfjord area appears as a 100 × 50 km dome-shaped boudin affected by at least two deformation stages. A stage of E-W stretching and top-to-west shearing produced several envelopes of migmatitic gneisses bounded by narrow high-strain zones over a core preserving the Precambrian granulite protolith. This dome is affected by the west-vergent Nordfjord Mylonitic Shear Zone on its southern limb during late exhumation under the Nordfjord-Sogn Detachment Zone. The first stage of deformation is coeval with reequilibration from maximum pressure conditions around 2.8 GPa, 650 °C (THERMOCALC multiequilibrium method) in the coesite stability field to higher temperature and lower pressure conditions (1.8 GPa, 780 °C). Subsequent retrogression was recorded in the amphibolite facies (0.7 GPa, 580 °C) and in the greenschist facies (0.4 GPa, 420 °C). Dates for these stages yield exhumation velocities higher than 2 mm/yr. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages in the area, compared to a spectrum of cooling ages along a 500-km-long N-S profile, show that cooling of the northern part of the Western Gneiss Complex is at least 20 Ma younger than in the south. The Western Gneiss Complex is therefore the result of the late juxtaposition of two complexes, the Northwestern Gneiss Complex, characterized by UHP relics, constrictive stretching, partial melting, and doming during a multi-stage exhumation from the deep parts of the orogen, and the Southwestern Gneiss Complex with Devonian basins, a well-developed detachment system, and distinct high pressure to medium pressure units stacked together during a single and rapid exhumation stage. The two complexes may represent deep subduction channel dynamics (north) and shallower wedge circulation (south) in the Caledonian orogen. The Nordfjord Mylonitic Shear Zone appears as a major tectonic in the Western Gneiss Complex. Partial melting in the Northwestern Gneiss Complex may have favored the late exhumation of E-W elongated domes such as the Nordfjord crustal-scale boudin and their juxtaposition to the Southwestern Gneiss Complex during top-to-west shearing.

Abstract The post-orogenic extensional processes that affected the inner sector of the Northern Apennine orogenic wedge (i.e. the Northern Tyrrhenian region) were accompanied by the emplacement of chiefly anatectic intrusive rocks of Late Miocene to Mid-Pleistocene age. In this paper, we compare geological and structural data from Messinian-Pliocene monzogranitic intrusions located both offshore (Monte Capanne, Porto Azzurro, Montecristo and Giglio) and onshore (Gavorrano and Botro ai Marmi) in the Northern Tyrrhenian region to constrain modes of pluton emplacement. Offshore, eastward non-coaxial extensional shear zones active both in ductile and brittle conditions accompanied the emplacement of the monzogranitic intrusions, and accommodated extension oriented E-W to WNW-ESE. Onshore, N-S dextral strike-slip faulting was active both during and after the late stage of emplacement of both Botro ai Marmi and Gavorrano plutons, and controlled their rise in coincidence with releasing bends. In our interpretation, the N-S, Late Miocene-Pliocene strike-slip faulting constitutes a secondary shear feature in a context of generalized post-orogenic extension, accommodating in the brittle upper crust the non-coaxial ductile extension in the lower crust. In this framework, N-S strike-slip faults localized the rise of early anatectic magma, generated during regional post-orogenic extension and residing at the base of the extending crust.