page_title: Pieniny Klippen Belt
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Pieniny Klippen Belt / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Paleogeographic situation in the Northern Hemisphere in the Upper Jurassic (aprox. 150 Ma) times (Modiefied after Plašienka). The Western Carpathian units and the future Slovak territory was formed by gradual collision of the Adriatic/Apulian continental block with the southern margin of Eastern European Craton and Bohemian Massif, after the closure of three Tethyian oceanic domains. The Meliata Ocean was clodsed during the Jurassic, the Piemont-Vahic Ocean in the Late Cretaceous and Valais-Magura Ocean in the Early Tertiary. Slovenčina: Palegogeografická situácia na severnej pologuli vo vrchnej jure (pred asi 150 miliónmi rokov) (Upravené podľa Plašienku). Západokarpatské jednotky, budúce územie Slovenska, sa tvorili postupnou kolíziou Adriatického/Apulského kontinentu s južným okrajom Východoeurópskej platformy a Českého masívu. Meliatský oceán sa uzavrel v jure, Piemontsko-Váhický vo vrchnej kriede a Valaisko-Magurský počas starších treťohôr.
context_page_description: The Pieniny Klippen Belt is in geology a tectonically and orographically remarkable zone in the Western Carpathians, with a very complex geological structure. It is a narrow and extremely long north banded zone of extreme shortening and sub-vertical strike-slip fault zone, with complex geological history, where only fragments of individual strata and facies are preserved. The Pieniny Klippen Belt is considered one of the main tectonic sutures of the Carpathians and forms the boundary between the Outer and Central Western Carpathians.
  The Pieniny Klippen Belt emerges from beneath the Neogene sediments of the Vienna basin near Podbranč in western Slovakia and continues eastward to Poland, where it bends and returns to Slovakia in the area of Pieniny. The klippen belt then continues to Ukraine and ends in Romania. In some places it is covered with younger deposits, for example in the Podhale basin in Poland, or in the Vihorlat Mountains in Slovakia.
  Klippes, which are the most characteristic features of the belt, are Jurassic to lower Cretaceous lenses - rigid blocks of limestone, tectonically separated from their unknown substratum.
context_section_description: Reconstruction of the older phases of development is not possible because of absence of pre-triassic rocks. The development of Pieniny Klippen Belt started on passive margin of European platform in Lower Jurassic with rifting and tectonic subsidence of Oravic unit. During the Middle Jurassic to Lowermost Cretaceous an elevated continental ribbon called the Czorsztyn Ridge evolved due to the thermal uplift and continental break-up at the southern side of the Czorsztyn Ridge. Rifting resulted in the opening of basinal area called the Kysuca basin or Vahic Ocean (South Penninic or Piemont ocean equivalent) to the south of the Oravic area. In the Upper Jurassic entire Oravic domain began to thermally subside. Since Lowermost Cretaceous time probably an asymmetrical rifting affected the area to the North of the Czorsztyn Ridge where a Magura basin (North Penninic or Valais Ocean equivalent) started to evolve.
  During the Middle Cretaceous thermal subsidence of the Czorsztyn Ridge caused its development into a pelagic high. In Turonian times frontal elements of the Fatric Nappe System of the Inner Western Carpathians were emplaced onto the southern parts of the Vahic Ocean. In the Upper Cretaceous to Paleocene the Vahic Ocean began to close. The Oravic units were detached from its subducting basement and formed a fold and thrust belt. After first phase of folding and thrusting sedimentation of turbiditic sequences was restored. Whole area was again deformed in second phase of orogeny in  the Upper Paleogene to Lower Miocene when sinistral transpression and amalgamation with hinterland part of closed Magura Ocean caused formation of typical "klippen" tectonic style due to counterclockwise rotation of ALCAPA microplate. During this times several subduction related calc-alcaline volcanoes locally evolved in the area. Later sinistral transtension and lateral extension modified the structure of the belt during the Late Miocene and Pliocene. Extensional deformation on the eastern and western edge of the belt interacted with development of the Vienna and Transcarpathian basin. After the marine regression at the end of Miocene younger marls and turbidites were eroded faster than more competent Jurassic limestones forming distinctly looking klippes.
caption: Paleogeographic situation in the Western Carpathian realm during the Upper Jurassic.
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