The Iváň Canyon, a large Miocene canyon in the Alpine-Carpathian Foredeep

During the latest Early Miocene a large drainage system developed in the Alpine-Carpathian Foreland transporting sediments through a prominent submarine canyon along the narrow corridor between the south-eastern Bohemian Massif and the Waschberg-Ždánice Unit. The canyon followed the Alpine-Carpathian Foredeep from Lower Austria towards the north and northeast into the Czech Republic. 3-D seismic data allow the mapping of this 600 m deep structure over a distance of 25 km and a width of 5 km. Despite its dimension, making it the largest submarine erosive and sedimentary structure of the Neogene Alpine-Carpathian Foredeep, this canyon has not been previously recognised. Herein, it is interpreted as shelf-indenting canyon that formed due to a combination of isostatic rebound along a terminating thrust front and sea-level change during the terminal Early Miocene.The canyon fill comprises reworked littoral deposits with a typical Early Miocene, tropical micro- and macrofauna. The exact timing of this refilling remains unclear. Smaller channel structures in surface outcrops, representing potential tributaries of the canyon, suggest a more or less synsedimentary filling soon after indention. Finally, the top part of the canyon was eroded around the Early/Middle Miocene boundary, probably related to a global 3rd order sea level drop, and caped by marine marls during the subsequent early Middle Miocene transgression. With the sudden onset of the subsidence of the Northern Vienna Basin during that time, the drainage system abruptly moved southward shedding its sediments into the newly opening Vienna Basin. This explains the rather abrupt abandonment of the huge canyon feature, whose fan deposits are unknown so far.

► A 600-m-deep Miocene canyon is described from the Alpine-Carpathian Foreland Basin.
► It is the largest Neogene erosive marine sedimentary feature of Central Europe.
► Isostatic rebound along a terminating thrust front initiated canyon indention.
► Canyon abandonment is related to the onset of subsidence in the Vienna Basin.
► The canyon-related deep water fans are considered as potential hydrocarbon plays.