Kinematics of conjugate shear zones, displacement partitioning and fragmentation of the upper rigid crust during denudation of high-P rocks (Pelagonian and Sub-Pelagonian Zones, Greece)

In the Sub-Pelagonian and Pelagonian Zones, kinematic analyses on faults and cataclastic shear zones document an overall displacement vector towards NNW and WSW/SSW for Attica and western Macedonia, respectively. This tectonic episode is interpreted as being triggered by the kinematically Oligocene–Miocene detachment of the Sub-Pelagonian and Pelagonian Zones from the high-P rocks. During this episode the Sub-Pelagonian and Pelagonian Zones were decoupled along detachment zones, fragmentised by brittle mechanisms and horizontally stretched in km-scale. The strain record of the cataclastically-deformed lithologies of the upper plates reveals a complex kinematic pattern with displacement partitioning in an overall non-coaxial regime. These structural processes are considered to be kinematically linked to the exhumation of the high-P rocks, deforming the Sub-Pelagonian and Pelagonian Zones.