Articles

Structural evolution along the Susa Shear Zone: the role of a first-order shear zone in the exhumation of meta-ophiolite units (Western Alps)

In the Western Alps, different shear zones acting at different depths have been investigated for explaining multistage exhumation of (U)HP units, and several exhumation models have been proposed for explaining...

Authors: Stefano Ghignone, Gianni Balestro, Marco Gattiglio and Alessandro Borghi

The role of the antigorite + brucite to olivine reaction in subducted serpentinites (Zermatt, Switzerland)

Metamorphic olivine formed by the reaction of antigorite + brucite is widespread in serpentinites that crop out in glacier-polished outcrops at the Unterer Theodulglacier, Zermatt. Olivine overgrows a relic ma...

Authors: Elias D. Kempf, Jörg Hermann, Eric Reusser, Lukas P. Baumgartner and Pierre Lanari

Ion microprobe dating of fissure monazite in the Western Alps: insights from the Argentera Massif and the Piemontais and Briançonnais Zones

Ion probe ²⁰⁸Pb/²³²Th fissure monazite ages from the Argentera External Massif and from the high-pressure units of the Western Alps provide new insights on its Cenozoic tectonic evolution. Hydrothermal monazite c...

Authors: Emmanuelle Ricchi, Edwin Gnos, Daniela Rubatto, Martin John Whitehouse and Thomas Pettke

Subduction of a rifted passive continental margin: the Pohorje case of Eastern Alps–constraints from geochronology and geochemistry

This study presents geochronological and geochemical data from newly dated Permian granitic orthogneisses associated with the Eclogite-Gneiss unit (EGU) from the southernmost part of the Austroalpine nappe sta...

Authors: Ruihong Chang, Franz Neubauer, Yongjiang Liu, Johann Genser, Wei Jin, Sihua Yuan, Qingbin Guan, Qianwen Huang and Weimin Li

Mimicking Alpine thrusts by passive deformation of synsedimentary normal faults: a record of the Jurassic extension of the European margin (Mont Fort nappe, Pennine Alps)

The Mont Fort nappe, former uppermost subunit of the Grand St-Bernard nappe system, is an independent tectonic unit with specific structural and stratigraphic characteristics (Middle Penninic, NW Italy and SW ...

Authors: Adrien Pantet, Jean-Luc Epard and Henri Masson

A step towards unraveling the paleogeographic attribution of pre-Mesozoic basement complexes in the Western Alps based on U–Pb geochronology of Permian magmatism

The Briançonnais Domain (Western Alps) represented the thinned continental margin facing the Piemonte-Liguria Ocean, later shortened during the Alpine orogeny. In the external part of the External Briançonnais...

Authors: Michel Ballèvre, Audrey Camonin, Paola Manzotti and Marc Poujol

A laboratory approach for the calibration of seismic data in the western part of the Swiss Molasse Basin: the case history of well Humilly-2 (France) in the Geneva area

A collection of 81 plugs were obtained from the Humilly-2 borehole (France), that reached the Permo-Carboniferous sediments at a depth of 3051 m. Experimental measurements of physical parameters and mineralogi...

Authors: Mahmoud Hefny, Alba Zappone, Yasin Makhloufi, Antoine de Haller and Andrea Moscariello

Banded amphibolites in the Alps: a new interpretation in relation to early Paleozoic peraluminous magmatism

The Strona-Ceneri Zone is located south of the Insubric line, where Alpine overprint is mainly brittle and of low grade or even absent. Apart from the unmetamorphic Permo-Carboniferous sediments and intrusiva ...

Authors: Roger Zurbriggen

A derived sauropodiform dinosaur and other sauropodomorph material from the Late Triassic of Canton Schaffhausen, Switzerland

Although sauropodomorph dinosaurs have been known for a long time from the Late Triassic of central Europe, sauropodomorph diversity and faunal composition has remained controversial until today. Here we revie...

Authors: Oliver W. M. Rauhut, Femke M. Holwerda and Heinz Furrer

The Erdmannshöhle near Hasel, SW Germany: karst environment and cave evolution

The Erdmannshöhle is located at the NE margin of the Dinkelberg plateau in SW Germany. With a length of 2315 m, it is the longest cave in the deep open karst area near the village of Hasel. Three main cave lev...

Authors: Arnfried Becker, Karsten Piepjohn and Andrea Schröder-Ritzrau

Messinian or Pleistocene valley incision within the Southern Alps

Many of the valleys on the southern slope of the Alps are over-deepened, having bedrock valley floors well below sea level. This has typically been attributed to incision that occurred during the Messinian Sal...

Authors: Sascha Winterberg, Vincenzo Picotti and Sean D. Willett

Jonas Ruh receives the 2019 Paul Niggli Medal

Authors:

Correction to: Paleoenvironmental changes across the Paleocene–Eocene boundary in West Central Sinai, Egypt: geochemical proxies

Following publication of the original article (Ghandour 2020), it was reported that the location map in Fig. 1 is modified after Speijer, but this was not mentioned in the caption of Fig. 1.

Authors: Ibrahim Mohamed Ghandour

The relation between peak metamorphic temperatures and subsequent cooling during continent–continent collision (western Central Alps, Switzerland)

The maximum temperature (T_max) and subsequent exhumation reflect the relations between advective and conductive heat transport, which in turn depend on the tectonic evolution. To unravel these relations in an oro...

Authors: Alfons Berger, Martin Engi, Silja Erne-Schmid, Christoph Glotzbach, Cornelia Spiegel, Rick de Goede and Marco Herwegh

Paleoenvironmental changes across the Paleocene–Eocene boundary in West Central Sinai, Egypt: geochemical proxies

A geochemical analysis has been conducted on twenty-six sediment samples spanning the P–E boundary interval collected from the Esna Shale in three well-dated stratigraphic sections in west-central Sinai, Egypt...

Authors: Ibrahim Mohamed Ghandour

Re-description of the sauropod dinosaur Amanzia (“Ornithopsis/Cetiosauriscus”) greppini n. gen. and other vertebrate remains from the Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) Reuchenette Formation of Moutier, Switzerland

Dinosaur remains were discovered in the 1860’s in the Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic) Reuchenette Formation of Moutier, northwestern Switzerland. In the 1920’s, these were identified as a new species of sauropod, Or...

Authors: Daniela Schwarz, Philip D. Mannion, Oliver Wings and Christian A. Meyer

The Theodul Glacier Unit, a slab of pre-Alpine rocks in the Alpine meta-ophiolite of Zermatt-Saas, Western Alps

The Theodul-Glacier-Unit (TGU) is a 100 m thick and 2 km long slab of pre-Alpine schist, gneiss and mafic rocks tectonically emplaced in the eclogite-facies Zermatt-Saas meta-ophiolite nappe (ZSU). The meta-se...

Authors: Kurt Bucher, Tobias Björn Weisenberger, Sebastian Weber, Oliver Klemm and Fernando Corfu

Tectonics of the Neuchâtel Jura Mountains: insights from mapping and forward modelling

This study focuses on a geological section in the Jura Mountains across the villages of Travers, La Brévine in Switzerland, and Morteau in France. Field mapping was conducted to complement and densify existing...

Authors: Valentin Rime, Anna Sommaruga, Marc Schori and Jon Mosar

Paleocene metamorphism along the Pennine–Austroalpine suture constrained by U–Pb dating of titanite and rutile (Malenco, Alps)

We present in situ rutile and titanite U–Pb geochronology for three samples from the Ur breccia, which forms the boundary between the Malenco unit and the Margna nappe (Eastern Central Alps) near Pass d’Ur in ...

Authors: Suzanne M. Picazo, Tanya A. Ewing and Othmar Müntener

Deep structure of the Pieniny Klippen Belt in Poland

An interpretation of the deep structure of the Pieniny Klippen Belt in Poland is presented, utilizing a high-resolution deep seismic reflection survey. The studied profiles reach a depth of around 23 km. The s...

Authors: Jan Golonka, Kaja Pietsch, Paweł Marzec, Monika Kasperska, Jerzy Dec, Kamil Cichostępski and Stanisław Lasocki

Facies and depositional environments of the Upper Muschelkalk (Schinznach Formation, Middle Triassic) in northern Switzerland

Subsurface sedimentary strata in northern Switzerland, such as the Middle Triassic Upper Muschelkalk, are attracting interest as potential reservoirs for CO₂ sequestration and for geothermal energy production. Ch...

Authors: Arthur Adams and Larryn W. Diamond

Unravelling the shape and stratigraphy of a glacially-overdeepened valley with reflection seismic: the Lienz Basin (Austria)

We reveal the subsurface bedrock topography and sedimentary succession of one of the deepest glacially-formed basins in the Eastern Alps: the Lienz Basin in the Upper Drau Valley (Tyrol), by means of seismic r...

Authors: Thomas Burschil, David C. Tanner, Jürgen M. Reitner, Hermann Buness and Gerald Gabriel

Preface: Special issue - The Alps as part of a larger system of Circum-Mediterranean orogens: papers presented at the 13th Alpine Workshop held in Zlatibor (Serbia)

Authors: Stefan M. Schmid, Vladica Cvetković, Kristina Šarić and Daniel Marty

Deformation around a detached half-graben shoulder during nappe stacking (Northern Calcareous Alps, Austria)

This study describes the inversion of a rift-related graben shoulder during emplacement and transport of a major thrust sheet in the external part of the western Northern Calcareous Alps (NCA). Structural fiel...

Authors: Patrick Oswald, Hugo Ortner and Alfred Gruber

Greater Alpine river network evolution, interpretations based on novel drainage analysis

The Central European drainage system is dominated by four major rivers (the Danube, Rhine, Rhône and Po). The geometry of these drainage basins has evolved through the history of Alpine and Carpathian orogeny....

Authors: Sascha Winterberg and Sean D. Willett

Structural and geochronological constraints from the Drina-Ivanjica thrust sheet (Western Serbia): implications for the Cretaceous–Paleogene tectonics of the Internal Dinarides

We have investigated successive episodes of ocean-continent and continent–continent convergence in Western Serbia (Drina-Ivanjica thrust sheet). The coupled application of structural and petrological analyses ...

Authors: Kristóf Porkoláb, Szilvia Kövér, Zsolt Benkó, Gábor H. Héja, Melinda Fialowski, Balázs Soós, Nataša Gerzina Spajić, Nevenka Đerić and László Fodor

SwissSed: past, present, and future trends in Swiss sedimentology

Authors: Peter Homewood, André Strasser, Silvia Spezzaferri and Anneleen Foubert

Correction to: Magmatic and tectonic history of Jurassic ophiolites and associated granitoids from the South Apuseni Mountains (Romania)

In the original version of this article, one reference was incorrect. The following change was necessary:

Authors: Daniela Gallhofer, Albrecht von Quadt, Stefan M. Schmid, Marcel Guillong, Irena Peytcheva and Ioan Seghedi

Correction to: Multiple Quaternary erosion and infill cycles in overdeepened basins of the northern Alpine foreland

In the original version of this article, some corrections had not been implemented.

Authors: Marius W. Buechi, Hans Rudolf Graf, Peter Haldimann, Sally E. Lowick and Flavio S. Anselmetti

The Šariš Transitional Zone, revealing interactions between Pieniny Klippen Belt, Outer Carpathians and European platform

The Pieniny Klippen Belt (PKB) is a narrow structure delineating the boundary between the Central and Outer Carpathians. It is built of nappes stacked during the Cretaceous and Paleocene and then re-folded in ...

Authors: Edyta Jurewicz

Tectonic significance of Triassic mafic rocks in the June Complex, Sanandaj–Sirjan zone, Iran

This study concentrates on the petrological and geochemical investigation of mafic rocks embedded within the voluminous Triassic June Complex of the central Sanandaj–Sirjan zone (Iran), which are crucial to re...

Authors: Farzaneh Shakerardakani, Franz Neubauer, Xiaoming Liu, Manfred Bernroider, Behzad Monfaredi and Albrecht von Quadt

From ocean formation to mountain evolution in alpine-type orogens

Authors: Christian Sue and Stefan M. Schmid

Multi-scale imaging of a slow active fault zone: contribution for improved seismic hazard assessment in the Swiss Alpine foreland

Seismic hazard assessment of slow active fault zones is challenging as usually only a few decades of sparse instrumental seismic monitoring is available to characterize seismic activity. Tectonic features link...

Authors: Naomi Vouillamoz, Jon Mosar and Nicholas Deichmann

Exploring diffusion and sorption processes at the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland): lessons learned from 20 years of field research

Transport and retardation parameters of radionuclides, which are needed to perform a safety analysis for a deep geological repository for radioactive waste in a compacted claystone such as Opalinus Clay, must ...

Authors: Olivier X. Leupin, Luc R. Van Loon, Thomas Gimmi, Paul Wersin and Josep M. Soler

Preserved organic matter in a fossil Ocean Continent Transition in the Alps: the example of Totalp, SE Switzerland

Evidence from ultraslow spreading mid-ocean ridges and both fossil and present-day Ocean–Continent Transitions (OCT) demonstrates that mantle serpentinization resulting from the interaction of mantle rock and ...

Authors: Tsvetomila Mateeva, George A. Wolff, Gianreto Manatschal, Suzanne Picazo, Nick J. Kusznir and John Wheeler

Comparative study of methods to estimate hydraulic parameters in the hydraulically undisturbed Opalinus Clay (Switzerland)

The deep borehole (DB) experiment gave the opportunity to acquire hydraulic parameters in a hydraulically undisturbed zone of the Opalinus Clay at the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland). Three methods we...

Authors: Catherine Yu, Jean-Michel Matray, Julio Gonçalvès, David Jaeggi, Werner Gräsle, Klaus Wieczorek, Tobias Vogt and Erik Sykes

Impact of the electron donor on in situ microbial nitrate reduction in Opalinus Clay: results from the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

At the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland), an in situ experiment is being carried out to examine the fate of nitrate leaching from nitrate-containing bituminized radioactive waste, in a clay host rock fo...

Authors: Nele Bleyen, Steven Smets, Joe Small, Hugo Moors, Natalie Leys, Achim Albrecht, Pierre De Cannière, Bernhard Schwyn, Charles Wittebroodt and Elie Valcke

Fifteen years of microbiological investigation in Opalinus Clay at the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

Microbiological studies related to the geological disposal of radioactive waste have been conducted at the Mont Terri rock laboratory in Opalinus Clay, a potential host rock for a deep geologic repository, sin...

Authors: Olivier X. Leupin, Rizlan Bernier-Latmani, Alexandre Bagnoud, Hugo Moors, Natalie Leys, Katinka Wouters and Simcha Stroes-Gascoyne

Natural gas extraction and artificial gas injection experiments in Opalinus Clay, Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

Two experiments have been installed at Mont Terri in 2004 and 2009 that allowed gas circulation within a borehole at a pressure between 1 and 2 bar. These experiments made it possible to observe the natural ga...

Authors: Agnès Vinsot, C. Anthony J. Appelo, Mélanie Lundy, Stefan Wechner, Cristelle Cailteau-Fischbach, Philippe de Donato, Jacques Pironon, Yanick Lettry, Catherine Lerouge and Pierre De Cannière

High-resolution mini-seismic methods applied in the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

We present several mini-seismic methods developed and applied in recent years in the Mont Terri rock laboratory. All these applications aimed at correlating and interpreting seismically derived parameters with...

Authors: Kristof Schuster, Florian Amann, Salina Yong, Paul Bossart and Peter Connolly

Corrosion of carbon steel in clay environments relevant to radioactive waste geological disposals, Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

Carbon steel is widely considered as a candidate material for the construction of spent fuel and high-level waste disposal canisters. In order to investigate corrosion processes representative of the long term...

Authors: Sophia Necib, Nikitas Diomidis, Peter Keech and Masashi Nakayama

Pore-water evolution and solute-transport mechanisms in Opalinus Clay at Mont Terri and Mont Russelin (Canton Jura, Switzerland)

Data pertinent to pore-water composition in Opalinus Clay in the Mont Terri and Mont Russelin anticlines have been collected over the last 20 years from long-term in situ pore-water sampling in dedicated boreh...

Authors: Martin Mazurek and Antoine de Haller

Mont Terri rock laboratory, 20 years of research: introduction, site characteristics and overview of experiments

Geologic repositories for radioactive waste are designed as multi-barrier disposal systems that perform a number of functions including the long-term isolation and containment of waste from the human environme...

Authors: Paul Bossart, Frédéric Bernier, Jens Birkholzer, Christophe Bruggeman, Peter Connolly, Sarah Dewonck, Masaaki Fukaya, Martin Herfort, Mark Jensen, Jean-Michel Matray, Juan Carlos Mayor, Andreas Moeri, Takahiro Oyama, Kristof Schuster, Naokata Shigeta, Tim Vietor…

Coupled hydraulic-mechanical simulation of seasonally induced processes in the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

This paper focuses on hydraulic-mechanical effects in the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland) and investigates their impact on pore pressure, the convergence of a niche and the evolution of pre-existing c...

Authors: Gesa Ziefle, Jean-Michel Matray, Jobst Maßmann and Andreas Möri

Implementation of the full-scale emplacement (FE) experiment at the Mont Terri rock laboratory

Opalinus Clay is currently being assessed as the host rock for a deep geological repository for high-level and low- and intermediate-level radioactive wastes in Switzerland. Within this framework, the ‘Full-Sc...

Authors: Herwig R. Müller, Benoit Garitte, Tobias Vogt, Sven Köhler, Toshihiro Sakaki, Hanspeter Weber, Thomas Spillmann, Marian Hertrich, Jens K. Becker, Niels Giroud, Veerle Cloet, Nikitas Diomidis and Tim Vietor

5-year chemico-physical evolution of concrete–claystone interfaces, Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

The Cement–Opalinus Clay Interaction (CI) Experiment at the Mont Terri rock laboratory is a long-term passive diffusion–reaction experiment between contrasting materials of relevance to engineered barrier syst...

Authors: Urs Mäder, Andreas Jenni, Cathérine Lerouge, Stephane Gaboreau, Satoru Miyoshi, Yukinobu Kimura, Veerle Cloet, Masaaki Fukaya, Francis Claret, Tsubasa Otake, Masahito Shibata and Babara Lothenbach

Tectonic evolution around the Mont Terri rock laboratory, northwestern Swiss Jura: constraints from kinematic forward modelling

We propose a geometrically, kinematically, and mechanically viable thin-skinned kinematic forward model for a cross section intersecting the Mont Terri rock laboratory in the frontal-most part of the Jura fold...

Authors: Christophe Nussbaum, Armelle Kloppenburg, Typhaine Caër and Paul Bossart

Platform-basin transitions and their role in Alpine-style collision systems: a comparative approach

The structure of Alpine-type orogenic belts is widely assumed to have been strongly influenced by the inherited structure of the rifted continental margins from which they were formed. The challenge lies in de...

Authors: Cameron Bell and Robert W. H. Butler

A tribute to the late Professor Jean-Pierre Berger (8 July 1956–18 January 2012)

Authors: Damien Becker, Daniel Marty, Claudius Pirkenseer, Lionel Cavin, Kirsten Grimm and Bettina Reichenbacher

Preface: clay mineral diagenesis and very low-grade metamorphic processes. Proceedings of the 2011 Frey–Kübler symposium

Authors: Rafael Ferreiro Mählmann, Fernando Nieto, Ömer Bozkaya, Sébastien Potel and Asuman Günal Türkmenoğlu