Structural architecture of the western Greater Caucasus pro-wedge: A case study from the Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt
- 1Faculty of Mining and Geology, Georgian Technical University, Tbilisi, Georgia (giorgadze.anzori@gtu.ge)
- 2Institute of Geophysics, I. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
- 3Division of Structural Geology and Tectonics, Institute of Applied Geosciences, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
- 4Department of Engineering and Geology, “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy
- 5A. Janelidze Institute of Geology, I. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
- 6Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, I. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
The Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt which is part of the western Greater Caucasus pro-wedge is located between the Lesser Caucasus and the Greater Caucasus orogens and is one of the most important examples of the collision-driven far-field deformation of the Arabia-Eurasia convergence zone (Alania et al., 2022). The Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt sedimentary infill consists of pre-and syn-orogenic sequences. Moreover, recent GPS and earthquake data indicate that the Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt is still tectonically active and the earthquakes’ focal mechanisms are mainly thrust faults (e.g., Tibaldi et al., 2017; Tsereteli et al., 2016).
Fault-related folding and wedge thrust folding theories were used to interpret 2D depth-migrated seismic reflection profiles and to construct the regional balanced and restored cross-sections across Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt. The balanced cross-section is approximately parallel to the trust transport direction and has a total length of 64 km. On the other hand, the amount of shortening obtained for this part of the regional balanced cross-section is 40% (-42.78km).
The main style of the deformation within the thin-skinned Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt is represented by a set of growth fault-propagation folds, duplexes, triangle zone, and a series of thrust-top basins. The evolution of the trust-top basins was mainly controlled by the kinematics of thrust sequences and competing growth fault-propagation folds and building compressional structures of the Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt was governed by the Greater Caucasus basement crustal-scale duplexes propagation along detachment horizons within the cover-generating thin-skinned structures.
Acknowledgment: This work was supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation (SRNSF) [Structural model of the Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt and the Southern Slope of the Greater Caucasus (The Tekhuri river gorge area) Grant #: PHDF-21-087]
References:
Alania, V., et al. (2022). Deformation structural style of the Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt, western Greater Caucasus: Insight from the balanced cross-section. Frontiers in Earth Science, 10:968386.
Tibaldi, A., et al. (2017). Active inversion tectonics, simple shear folding and back-thrusting at Rioni Basin, Georgia. Journal of Structural Geology 96, 35-53.
Tsereteli, N., et al. (2016). Active tectonics of central-western Caucasus, Georgia. Tectonophysics 691, 328-344.
How to cite: Giorgadze, A., Alania, V., Busch, B., Enukidze, O., Quandt, D., Pace, P., Razmadze, A., and Shikhashvili, T.: Structural architecture of the western Greater Caucasus pro-wedge: A case study from the Rioni foreland fold-and-thrust belt, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-21, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-21, 2023.
