Local shear zone pattern and bulk deformation in the Gran Paradiso metagranite (NW Italian Alps) |
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Authors: | Luca Menegon Giorgio Pennacchioni |
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Institution: | 1. Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Universit?? degli Studi di Padova, via Giotto 1, 35137, Padova, Italy 2. Institutt for Geologi, Universitetet i Troms?, Dramsveien 201, 9037, Troms?, Norway
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Abstract: | The Gran Paradiso nappe of the northwestern Alps mostly consists of augen gneisses derived from the Alpine deformation of
Permian granitoids. The regional foliation of the augen gneisses developed at lower amphibolite facies conditions and is associated
with a top-to-west sense of shear. The granitoid protolith is preserved in the kilometre-scale low-strain domain of the Piantonetto
Valley and mainly consists of a porphyritic metagranite including joints, leucocratic dykes and biotite-rich schlieren. In
this low-strain domain, the Alpine deformation is mainly localized in discrete ductile shear zones within weakly foliated
metagranite. The shear zones mostly dip towards S–SE in a shallow (shear zones
1) to steep inclination (shear zones
2). The shear zones show typical features that can be explained by reactivation of pre-existing joints and planar compositional
heterogeneities. Palaeostress and strain analysis indicate that shear zones and the metagranite foliation both formed in the
presence of a strong component of flattening. The kinematics of individual shear zones depends on the orientation of the original
heterogeneities (acting as nucleation planes) and by partitioning of strain components at the kilometre-scale with concentration
of the flattening component to the Piantonetto low-strain domain. The strain geometry and the kinematics of individual shear
zones within Piantonetto are not directly connected to the top-to-west sense of tectonic transport observed elsewhere in the
Gran Paradiso nappe. However, the bulk stress ellipsoid reconstructed for the incipient shear zone network within very weakly
deformed granites is oriented consistently with the bulk direction of tectonic transport within the Gran Paradiso massif.
We conclude that the shear zone network of the Piantonetto Valley is representative of the incipient stages of ductile deformation
of a granite nappe. Even if its architecture is determined by the arrangement of pre-existing structural and compositional
heterogeneities, aspects of the large-scale bulk strain can be derived from this local shear zone pattern. |
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