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Late Cretaceous exhumation and uplift of the Harz Mountains, Germany: a multi-method thermochronological approach

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Abstract

The Harz Mountains represent one of the most prominent surface expressions of Late Cretaceous intraplate shortening in Central Europe. We present a comprehensive low-temperature thermochronological data set (zircon and apatite, fission track and [U–Th]/He) covering the exhumed Paleozoic basement of the Harz Mountains and the adjacent Kyffhäuser block, as well as Lower Triassic sedimentary rocks of the western and southern rim of the Harz Mountains. Integration of results with sedimentological data from the syntectonic Late Cretaceous Subhercynian Basin allows for a detailed reconstruction of the timing of uplift and erosion of the Harz Mountains. The data reveal that (i) tectonic reorganization and initial exhumation started at around 90 Ma, (ii) uplift and emergence caused erosion of the Mesozoic sedimentary cover between 86–85 Ma and 83–82 Ma, and (iii) erosion of at least 3–4 km of underlying Paleozoic rocks followed and continued into the Paleogene. The thickness of removed overburden amounts to at least 6 km, and most erosion occurred in Santonian to Campanian time at minimum rates of ~ 0.5 km/Myr. The southwestern rim of the Harz has exhumed slower over a longer period of time, and may record a phase of Late Cretaceous, syntectonic sediment accumulation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Björn Baresel, Eike-Matthias Bultmann, Katrina Kremer, Florian Wetzel and Jörn-Frederic Wotzlaw for supporting the (U–Th)/He analysis at University of Göttingen, Frank Hansen for mineral separation at Ruhr University Bochum, and Jonas Kley and Thomas Voigt for valuable discussions. Thorough reviews by Martin Danišík and an anonymous reviewer helped to improve the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geoscience Center, Department of Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, 37077, Göttingen, Germany

    Hilmar von Eynatten, István Dunkl & Veit-Enno Hoffmann

  2. Institute of Geology, Mineralogy, and Geophysics, Faculty of Geosciences, Ruhr University Bochum, Universitätsstrasse 150, 44801, Bochum, Germany

    Manfred Brix

  3. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Matthias Raab & Barry Kohn

  4. Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Stuart Nigel Thomson

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  1. Hilmar von Eynatten
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Correspondence to Hilmar von Eynatten.

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von Eynatten, H., Dunkl, I., Brix, M. et al. Late Cretaceous exhumation and uplift of the Harz Mountains, Germany: a multi-method thermochronological approach. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 108, 2097–2111 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-019-01751-5

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