Geologia Croatica (Nov 2010)
Tectonic Structures Along the Periadriatic Lineament in Slovenia
Abstract
The Periadriatic lineament extends from the Sesia zone in Italyacross southern Austria into Slovenia, in the area of the Karavankemountains. It continues eastwards into the Pannonian basin in Hungaryas the Balaton line. The Karavanke mountain range runs fromSlovenia in the east westwards into the Carnian Alps of Austria. Furthereast they extend beneath the Tertiary sediments of the Pannonianbasin into Hungary. The Karavanke mountains represent a boundaryzone between the Eastern Alps to the north and the Julian and Savinja-Kamnik Alps or Southern Alps to the south. The Periadriatic lineamentintersects the eastern part of the Karavanke mountains fromAustria, trending eastwards, dividing this unit into the Northern andSouthern Karavanke.Geologically, the Karavanke mountains consist of Palaeozoic,Mesozoic (moslly Triassic) rocks and Tertiary sediments. In the eastern part of the Karavanke mountains, along the Periadriatic lineament,there is a belt of magmatic rocks, granite in the north andtonalite in the south, with a narrow belt of metamorphic rocks inbetween.The tectonic structure of the aforementioned boundary zone isespecially interesting. New research res ull~ show that both the overallstructure (1I1d individual tectonic units respectively of this zonesleeply deep towards the south beneath the Julian and Savinja (Kamnik)Alps. The Karavanke mountains are on the north thrusted overEastern Alps by horizontal movements along sing le faults. Amongthese faults, the Pe riadriatic lineament. along which [he mentionedmagmatic (granitc - tonalite) zone appears, is especially interesting.This paper attempts 10 define the seq uencc o f tectonic movementswhich took place at the end of lhe Alpine geotectonic cycle,and lhe tectonic structure or the Karavanke M1. zone.
Keywords
