Thèse. Biologie. Médecine. 1995

The Alps, Carpathians and Dinarides form a complex, highly curved and strongly coupled orogenic system. Motions of the European and Adriatic plates gave birth to a number of 'oceans' and microplates that led to several distinct stages of collision. Although the Alps serve as a classical example of collisional orogens, it becomes clearer that substantial questions on their evolution can only be answered in the Carpathians and Dinarides. Our understanding of the geodynamic evolution of the Alpine-Dinaride-Carpathian System has substantially improved and will continue to develop; this is thanks to collaboration between eastern and western Europe, but also due to the application of new methods and the launch of research initiatives. The largely field-based contributions investigate the following subjects: pre-Alpine heritage and Alpine reactivation; Mesozoic palaeogeography and Alpine subduction and collision processes; extrusion tectonics from the Eastern Alps to the Carpathians and the Pannonian Basin; orogen-parallel and orogen-perpendicular extension; record of orogeny in foreland basins; tectonometamorphic evolution; and relations between the Alps, Apennines and Corsica.

Petrochronology is a rapidly emerging branch of Earth science that links time (ages or rates) with specific rock-forming processes and their physical conditions. It is founded in petrology and geochemistry, which define a petrogenetic context or delimit a specific process, to which chronometric data are then linked. This combination informs Earth’s petrogenetic processes better than petrology or geochronology alone. This volume and the accompanying short courses address three broad categories of inquiry. Conceptual approaches chapters include petrologic modeling of multi-component chemical and mineralogic systems, and development of methods that include diffusive alteration of mineral chemistry. Methods chapters address four main analytical techniques, specifically EPMA, LA-ICP-MS, SIMS and TIMS. Mineral-specific chapters explore applications to a wide range of minerals, including zircon (metamorphic, igneous, and detrital/Hadean), baddeleyite, REE minerals (monazite, allanite, xenotime and apatite), titanite, rutile, garnet, and major igneous minerals (olivine, plagioclase and pyroxenes). These applications mainly focus on metamorphic, igneous, or tectonic processes, but additionally elucidate fundamental transdisciplinary progress in addressing mechanisms of crystal growth, the chemical consequences of mineral growth kinetics, and how chemical transport and deformation affect chemically complex mineral composites. Most chapters further recommend areas of future research.

As a result of its bouyancy, continental crust is rarely subducted meaning that successive episodes of continental deformation imparts a complex geological character that is not found in younger oceanic lithosphere.

Usually geomorphology, structural geology and engineering geology provide descriptions of slope instability in quite distinctive ways. This new research is based on combined approaches to providing an integrated view of the operative slope processes. 'Slope Tectonics' is the term adopted here to refer to those deformations that are induced or fully controlled by the slope morphology, and that generate features which can be compared to those created by tectonic activity. Such deformation can be induced by the stress field in a slope which is mainly controlled by gravity, topography and the geological setting created by the geodynamic context. The content of this book includes slope-deformation characterization using morphology and evolution, mechanical behaviour of the material, modes of failure and collapse, influence of lithology and structural features, and the role played by controlling factors.

Concerne en grande partie les Alpes valaisannes et les Alpes vaudoises.