PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE SLUMP STRUCTURES OF THE EARLY OLIGOCENE SEDIMENTS OF THE PRE-APULIAN ZONE (ANTIPAXOS ISLAND, NORTH-WESTERN GREECE)

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Published: Jan 1, 2010
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/bgsg.11226
Keywords:
synsedimentary mass flow Early Oligocene synsedimentary folds
V. Karakitsios
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, Department of Historical Geology and Paleontology
M. Triantaphyllou
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, Department of Historical Geology and Paleontology
P. Panoussi
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, Department of Historical Geology and Paleontology
Abstract
A spectacular slump is observed in the Alpine sediments of the Antipaxos Island (Pre-Apulian zone, Western Greece). It can be followed in a zone of about 2000 m, in the eastern coast of the island. The slumped unit exposure length extends for more than 200 m, and is directly overlain and underlain by undeformed strata. The slump has an average thickness of 15 m and is composed, as the surrounding undeformed units, of calcareous mudstones and fine-grained calcareous sandstones. Synsedimentary folds that very often are transformed to contorted beds affect slump sediments. Fold and contorted bed axes present a NNW-SSE direction, coinciding with the general direction of the Pre-Apulian zone. Slump and overlain/underlain undeformed sediments originate from the flux of clastic mainly pelagic/neritic biogenic particles, emanating from turbidity currents. More than 50 samples have been collected and analyzed for calcareous nannofossil content. All samples were featured by the contemporaneous presence of abundant nannofossil flora implying the biostratigraphic correlation with the NP23 nannofossil biozone. The biostratigraphic assignment places the slump and the surrounding sediments to the Early Oligocene. As the Pre-Apulian zone corresponds to the slope between the Apulian Platform and the Ionian Basin, the presence of the slump is directly related to the same age sloping and tectonic mobility of this domain. The Antipaxos turbidites sediments are well integrated to the flysch deposition of the external Hellenide foreland basin system.
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  • Palaeontology, Stratigraphy and Sedimentology
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