Abstract The Carpathian-Balkan (Apuseni-Banat- Timok-Srednogorie belt) Late Cretaceous metallogenic and magmatic province is particularly well suited for the study of genetic relationships between calc-alkaline magmatism and porphyry-style and epithermal ore deposits. Here, igneous and hydrothermal products are still linked to the present-day lithosphere structure as depicted by seismic tomography ( Sparkman, 1986 ; Wortel and Sparkman, 2000 ). The products of magmatism in the province reveal the interaction of processes from the lithospheric scale down to individual ore-magmatic centers. This magmatism also gave rise to fertile ore-forming magmatic-hydrothermal systems of great practical significance ( Mitchell, 1996 ; Jankovich, 1997 ). Europe's only world-class porphyry- copper deposit (Medet) and Europe's largest gold producing mine (Chelopech; Andrew, 1997) are related to this magmatism. In spite of many publications describing the geology, tectonics, and ore mineralization of the Srednogorie part of the province, up-to-date regional summaries of its petrology and geochemistry are lacking. Most past ideas were based on unreliable geochemical data. The relative and absolute timing of this magmatism within the geodynamic evolution of the region was predicted but not well supported. The geochronological constraints published before 2000 were based mainly on K-Ar methods ( Chipchakova and Lilov, 1976 ; Boyadjiev, 1981; Boyadjiev and Lilov, 1981; Lilov and Chipchakova, 1999 ). On the other hand, abundant new data for central Srednogorie that has accumulated during recent years, although valuable, were concentrated on specific ore-magmatic centres ( Amov, 1999 ; Kouzmanov et al., 2001b ; Velichkova et al., 2001