From the Guajira Desert to the Apennines, and from Mediterranean Microplates to the Mexican Killer Asteroid: Honoring the Career of Walter Alvarez

This volume pays tribute to the great career and extensive and varied scientific accomplishments of Walter Alvarez, on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2020, with a series of papers related to the many topics he covered in the past 60 years: Tectonics of microplates, structural geology, paleomagnetics, Apennine sedimentary sequences, geoarchaeology and Roman volcanics, Big History, and most famously the discovery of evidence for a large asteroidal impact event at the Cretaceous–Tertiary (now Cretaceous–Paleogene) boundary site in Gubbio, Italy, 40 years ago, which started a debate about the connection between meteorite impact and mass extinction. The manuscripts in this special volume were written by many of Walter’s close collaborators and friends, who have worked with him over the years and participated in many projects he carried out. The papers highlight specific aspects of the research and/or provide a summary of the current advances in the field.
Ligurian hyperextended continental margin preserved in an ophiolitic block at Timpa di Pietrasasso, Calabrian Arc, southern Italy
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Published:June 21, 2022
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CiteCitation
David H. Shimabukuro, Claire Battistella, 2022. "Ligurian hyperextended continental margin preserved in an ophiolitic block at Timpa di Pietrasasso, Calabrian Arc, southern Italy", From the Guajira Desert to the Apennines, and from Mediterranean Microplates to the Mexican Killer Asteroid: Honoring the Career of Walter Alvarez, Christian Koeberl, Philippe Claeys, Alessandro Montanari
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ABSTRACT
The Cenozoic accretionary complex in the Calabrian Arc, southern Italy, contains hectometric- to kilometric-scale exposures of basalt, gabbro, and serpentinite that have been interpreted as dismembered fragments of Alpine Tethys ocean crust because of their incomplete nature with respect to the traditional view of a complete ophiolite sequence. We present new geologic mapping, geochemistry, and geochronology of one of these units at Timpa di Pietrasasso near the town of Terranova di Pollino in the Basilicata region that exposes Jurassic Tethyan pillow basalt and chert that are separated from gabbro and serpentinite by a fault. The gabbro in the footwall is Permian in age, indicated by U-Pb zircon ages of 284 ± 6 Ma, 293 ± 6 Ma, and 295 ± 4 Ma, linking it to gabbros that underplated continental crust after the Permo-Carboniferous Variscan Orogeny. The gabbro first underwent amphibolite-facies metamorphism, then developed a greenschist-facies mylonitic foliation near the fault surface that is crosscut by undeformed Jurassic-aged dikes of Tethyan origin, indicating that deformation is early Tethyan or pre-Tethyan in age. The underlying serpentinite is tectonically interleaved with blocks of Variscan lower crust, indicating that the missing upper plate of the extensional detachment complex was continental in origin. These features indicate that the Timpa di Pietrasasso unit preserves a low-angle detachment fault that developed in a hyperextended continental margin of the Alpine Tethys.
- Alps
- amphibolites
- basalts
- Calabrian
- Calabrian Arc
- Carboniferous
- Cenozoic
- continental margin
- decollement
- dikes
- Europe
- facies
- faults
- foliation
- gabbros
- geochemistry
- geochronology
- igneous rocks
- intrusions
- Italy
- Jurassic
- Liguria Italy
- Ligurian Alps
- lower Pleistocene
- Mediterranean region
- Mesozoic
- metaigneous rocks
- metamorphic rocks
- metamorphism
- metasomatic rocks
- mylonites
- nesosilicates
- ophiolite
- orogeny
- orthosilicates
- Paleozoic
- Permian
- Pleistocene
- plutonic rocks
- Quaternary
- serpentinite
- silicates
- Southern Europe
- Tethys
- U/Pb
- Variscan Orogeny
- volcanic rocks
- Western Alps
- zircon
- zircon group
- Timpa di Pietrasasso Italy