1: Subduction, slab detachment and mineralization: The Neogene in the Apuseni Mountains and Carpathians

In the 13 to 11 Ma period the dominant mineralization formed all across the Carpathians, and was superimposed on structurally favourable crustal areas with, at that time, volcanic-hydrothermal activity. The period may reflect the moment when the (upper part of the) crust failed under lithospheric extension imposed by the slab evolution. This crustal failure would have fragmented the overriding plate, possibly breaking up the thermal lid, to provoke intensive fluid flow in specific areas, and allowed subsequent accelerated tectonic development, block rotation and extrusion of a “family of sub-blocks” that are arbitrarily regarded as the Tisia-Dacia or Alcapa blocks, even though they have lost their internal entity.