Divergence in subduction zones and exhumation of high pressure rocks (Eocene Western Alps)

Exhumation of high-pressure rocks has long remained a controversial issue in the Earth sciences. In this article, we analyze the tectono-metamorphic, stratigraphic and plate-motion constraints from the Western Alps region, providing new insights on exhumation mechanisms and tectonic evolution during the earliest orogenic stages. Eocene eclogites of the Western Alps form a 20–25 km wide belt on the upper-plate side of the orogen (Eclogite belt), exposed beneath extensional shear zones at the rear of a lower-pressure accretionary wedge. Units of the Eclogite belt show the youngest peak-pressure assemblages within the subduction zone, and experienced superfast tectonic exhumation since 45–40 Ma. The role of erosion was negligible during the whole of this stage. Eocene foreland basins remained starved, and the massive arrival of axial-belt detritus began well after exhumation was completed. Tectonic reconstructions based on fixed-boundaries exhumation models (e.g. channel flow), and/or implying fast erosion at the surface (e.g. slab breakoff), are thus not consistent with geological evidence. In the lack of erosion, exhumation through the overburden requires divergence within the subduction zone. We demonstrate that this was not attained by rollback of the lower plate (Europe), but was instead attained by NNEward motion of the upper plate (Adria-Africa) away from the Western Alps trench. Such motion induced localized extension within the weak portion of the upper plate, at the rear of the accretionary wedge, and allowed tectonic emplacement of the Eclogite belt in the upper crust at rates much faster than subduction rates. Tectonic exhumation ceased in the Oligocene, when oblique-divergence along the Western Alps traverse changed into oblique-convergence. The onset of slow erosional unroofing was synchronously recorded by pressure–temperature paths in all major tectonic units of the Western Alps, and by arrival of orogenic detritus in sedimentary basins. This work demonstrates that divergence between upper plate and trench is a viable mechanism to exhume large and coherent eclogite units in continental subduction zones. Our exhumation model can be applied to other eclogite belts showing a similar exhumational record, including the Western Gneiss Region, the Dabie-Sulu, and eastern Papua New Guinea.

► Upper-plate motion away from the trench triggers exhumation of high pressure rocks.
► Exhumation in the Tertiary Western Alps was much faster than subduction.
► Stratigraphic record provides invaluable constraints on exhumation mechanisms.
► Basins were starved during exhumation of Western Alps eclogites.