Geologic evolution of Bulgaria in light of plate tectonics
Abstract
The Balkanide is a mobile belt within a micro-continent, which included both the Moesian Platform and Rhodope Massif. This micro-continent was rotated counter-clockwise during the Jurassic mainly in response to the sea-floor spreading of the Vardar ophiolite trough. The rotation led to the consumption of Triassic Tethys along the Dobrogea—Crimea—Caucasus Trend, producing the Cimmerian orogenic belt. Cretaceous rotation of the Italo-Dinaridian micro-continent led to the consumption of the Vardar ophiolites. An island arc (Macedonia—Rhodope—North Anatolia) was present at the consuming plate margin. Middle and Late Cretaceous marginal basins behind this arc included the Srednogorie and the Black Sea. Submarine volcanics, radiolarian cherts, and hemipelagic marls were deposited in the Srednogorie "eugeosyncline". This sequence was folded during the early Tertiary Alpine orogeny, when the front of the Rhodope Massif was overthrust onto the Balkanides. The Black Sea meanwhile remained undeformed and can thus be considered a fossilized Cretaceous marginal basin.
- Publication:
-
Tectonophysics
- Pub Date:
- July 1977
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0040-1951(77)90068-3
- Bibcode:
- 1977Tectp..40..245H