Friday, February 19, 2010

Getic Basin, Romania

The Getic basin, also known as the Southern Carpathians foredeep, is a geologic province located in south-central Romania, between the crystalline belt of the Southern Carpathians and the Moesian Platform.
© RomaniaRocks

Pictures from Salatruc,  Topolog River valley, Curtea de Arges, Corbi village, give a feel for how this part of Romania looks like.

The basin formed during Late Cretaceous time (more than 70 million years ago) by flexure of the lithosphere in response to thrusting and crustal thickening in the adjacent mountain belt. During Early Tertiary time (or about 60 million years ago), the Getic basin was an elongated and asymmetrical foredeep, with an axis oriented parallel to the Southern Carpathians orogenic belt, a steeply dipping flank on the orogen side, and a gently dipping flank overlying the platform.
Thrusting in the Southern Carpathians resulted from the interaction between two plate fragments, the Rhodopian and Moesian fragments.
© RomaniaRocks

This interaction had important consequences for the development of the Getic basin and was characterized by continental collision and subduction during the Late Cretaceous, and compression with a component of dextral wrenching during the Paleogene.
The Paleogene-Lower Miocene basin fill consists of siliciclastic, continental to shallow marine rocks in the northern part of the basin, grading basinward (southward) into deep marine deposits. The sediment source area was the Southern Carpathians orogenic belt.

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