Neogene exhumation in the Outer Western Carpathians

Apatite fission-track analysis was used to investigate the Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the Polish sector of the Outer Western Carpathians, where thrusting was overlapped by extension in the last 10 Ma. The results show a general decrease of burial degree towards the European foreland and a range of cooling ages between 26 and 7 Ma. Younger ages (10–7 Ma) are confined to the eastern region, whereas exhumation in the central-western region is about 10 Ma older and is characterized by no major age differences among structural units. Therefore, exhumation of the chain is inferred to have occurred since the Early Miocene, when it appears to have been essentially coeval with thrusting, whereas extensional tectonics is likely to have played an important role during Late Miocene exhumation.