THE DEEP-STRUCTURE OF THE CENTRAL ALPS INFERRED FROM BOTH GEOPHYSICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DATA

Gravity surveys of the past century established that mountains have roots, seismic refraction lines shot in the second half of this century confirmed the downbulge of the Moho under the Alps, and recent reflection traverses provided new details on the behaviour of crustal layers in the deep part of the Alps. However, geophysical data are ambiguous geologically. For models of the root in terms of rock distribution to be tectonophysically acceptable, they must be the retrodeformable result of kinematic sequence that fits the geological surface data. For a cross-section through the Swiss Alps based on refraction data and somewhat modified by the recent reflection traverses, a kinematic model compatible with large-scale geological data may be obtained by the superposition of three Neogene phases with alternating vergence. Although Alpine collision is largely dextrally compressive in the central Alps, the N-S component may be discussed in a cross-section. Particularly puzzling geophysical features include a high-velocity body in the middle crust and the disappearance of the layered foreland crust in the root. In order to account for these phenomena, it is proposed that the crustal root is interpreted as the result of complex reshuffling of middle and lower crustal masses as well as large-scale phase transformations. The mid-crustal high-velocity body is interpreted as a delaminated section of the lower crust of the Adria plate that was wedged into the middle crust of the Alps in the middle Miocene. The disappearance of the foreland lower crust is attributed to eclogitization attendant on the subduction of continental crust. Material balance estimates suggest that during Alpine collision large volumes of continental crust have disappeared through subduction.