Provenance analysis of the Permo-Triassic Lantschfeld quartzite in the Austroalpine of the Radstädter Tauern, European Eastern Alps

The Permo-Triassic shallow marine to continental deposits of the Alpine Verrucano and the Lantschfeld quartzite discordantly overly the Variscan basement in the Eastern Alps. The late Permian Alpine Verrucano is characterized by fine- to coarse-clastic (meta-)sediments with local calcareous and/or conglomeratic layers. The well sorted and more mature, early Triassic Lantschfeld quartzite is carbonate free, shows pale green to white coloring and rare conglomeratic layers. Both provide an important detrital record of post-Variscan landscape evolution. Investigations on non metamorphic Permo-Triassic units of the Northern Calcareous Alps (Haas et al., 2020) provided zircons connected to processes of the Pan-African, Cadomian and Variscan Orogenies. However, they show large disparities between different nappes. This underlines the varied character of the Variscan basement units, and a better understanding may provide interesting hints for the assignment of tectonic slivers to certain nappe complexes.

In this contribution we present detrital age spectra from the metamorphic Lantschfeld quartzite of the Lower Austroalpine Radstadt Nappe and the Upper Austroalpine Silvretta-Seckau Nappe System. By combing detrital zircon U-Pb dating with detrital rutile U-Pb and rutile geochemistry data, we can better trace the metamorphic history of the Variscan basement units contributing to the early Triassic basin fill.

Haas I, Eichinger S, Haller D, Fritz H, Nievoll J, Mandl M, Hippler D and Hauzenberger C 2020 Gondwana Research 77 204–22