About a peri-Gondwanan-North African enlarged acceptance of the Caledonian Orogeny

Authors

Ioan Balintoni, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-NapocaFollow
Constantin Balica, Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca; University of ArizonaFollow
Horst-Peter Hann, Universität Tübingen, GermanyFollow

Abstract

The notion of “Caledonian Orogeny” is restricted by most authors to the Ordovician-Devonian thermotectonic events associated with the Laurentia-Baltica- Avalonia suturing. However, some views consider an orogeny as the sum of tectonic, metamorphic and magmatic events accompanying an entire supercontinent assembly or Wilson cycle. Following this line of thinking, the Caledonian and Variscan orogenies successively assembled Pangea. During the Ordovician Period, rifting, collision, deformation, metamorphism and magmatism took place within the Gondwana margin. All these events are known today in the basement of the Cadomian terranes from Iberia through the Alps up to the Romanian Carpathians and Balkans. We plead here for an enlargement of the “Caledonian Orogeny” terminology to these events and places, under the name of the “Caledonian North African orogenic event" or "Caledonian North African orogeny"

Recommended Citation

Balintoni, Ioan; Balica, Constantin; and Hann, Horst-Peter (2011) About a peri-Gondwanan-North African enlarged acceptance of the Caledonian Orogeny, Studia UBB Geologia 56 (1): 29-32
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1937-8602.56.1.3
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/geologia/vol56/iss1/art5