Geometry and kinematics of the boulonnais fold-andthrust belt (N France): Implications for the dynamics of the Northern Variscan thrust front

Abstract

Recent structural data obtained within the Boulonnais thrust belt along the Northern Variscan thrust front provide a new insight into the deformation history of the Variscan belt. The zone under study recorded the latest increments of inversion of the Rheno-hercynian basin in Late Westphalian—Early Stephanian times (ca 305 Ma). Thrusting within the southern margin of the “Old Red Sandstones Continent” propagated primarily in sequence up to the Brabant massif which acts as a significant buttress. This buttress effect, which we suggest to be due to the southward activation of deep-seated inherited Caledonian thrusts, resulted in the out-of-sequence dislocation of the thrust front. The associated localized thrust stack induced a sharp flexure of the underthrust block moulding the border of the molassic coal-bearing foreland basin. During this process, strain markers at the thrust front document an evolution of thrusting from a dominantly NNE to NE direction whereas more internal parts of the belt undergo dextral transcurrent deformations (e.g. the Bray fault zone). Such a partition of the deformation argues for a general transpressional setting of the SE England-Boulonnais orogenic belt acting as a relay zone between more frontal parts of the Variscan orogen (Ardenno-Rhenish and SW England segments). This mechanism highlights the segmented nature of the Variscan thrust front and points out the importance of the Devonian basin pre-structuration in the present-day arcuate shape of the Variscan belt. Late Variscan reactivation of the thrust network occured within a transtensional setting associated to a dominant NNW-SSE directed extension. This event induced the formation of local intramontane basins and contributed to the thinning and thermal restoration of the thickened external Variscan crust in Upper Stephanian—Middle Permian times. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.