Provenance of the Peloponnese (Greece) flysch based on heavy minerals

Abstract

The heavy mineral distribution of the Palaeogene flysch deposits of the Ionian, Gavrovo–Tripolitza and Pindos zones of the Peloponnese has been systematically investigated. The Ionian zone is distinguished from the Gavrovo–Tripolitza zone by higher amounts of detrital chrome spinel. The Ionian and the western occurrences of the Gavrovo–Tripolitza flysch are comparable with the successions of the Greek mainland, whereas samples of the Gavrovo–Tripolitza flysch from central and eastern locations of the Peloponnese, which crop out in tectonic windows, are clearly distinct. On the basis of heavy mineral distribution, the Gavrovo–Tripolitza flysch of the central and eastern Peloponnese shows clear relationships to the metaflysch sediments exposed in the tectonic windows of Olympos and Ossa, in Thessaly, which have no relation to the Gavrovo flysch of the mainland. The Pindos flysch from the Peloponnese contains the same heavy mineral assemblages as the pre-Middle Eocene deposits of the mainland. Younger Pindos flysch sediments are not observed on the Peloponnese. The differences in heavy mineral distribution within the Gavrovo–Tripolitza flysch, between the western and eastern localities, can be explained by an intensive reworking of Pindos flysch during the tectonic progradation of the Pindos nappe onto its foreland basin.