Plate Tectonics
Romania's Tectonic Plates
During Early Cretaceous time, movement sense changed and the microplates were translated toward the stable craton. The Apuseni ophiolites were obducted onto continental crust. Convergent plate boundaries, with flysch, nappe structures, and silicic volcanism, developed between Moesia-Pannonia and the Tethys-Dinaric Oceans and between Pannonia and the Siret Ocean.
In Paleocene time, a belt of calc-alkalic rocks (banatites) developed in western Romania and the Balkan Mountains as a result of plate convergence of Rhodope and Moesia as the last of Tethys was subducted. This was followed by a continental collision of Moesia and Pannonia and the uplift of the South Carpathians. Neogene volcanism and molasse developed as end stages of plate subduction and collision. Modern earthquake activity of the Vrancea Mountains and high heat flow in Transylvania suggest that subduction is still going on around the great Carpathian arch.
The revision of Romanian earthquakes shows a distribution suggesting a sinking lithosphere under the Carpathian arc. Thermal and gravitational anomalies, as well as petrological and tectonic features, provide further evidence on the cause and character of intermediate earthquakes of Romania. This is consistent with the theory of plate tectonics in south-east Europe.
Romania consists of boundaries with East European Plate (EEP), Moesian microplate (MoP), and Intracarpathian microplate (IaP) seem to meet into the Vrancea area, which active seismicity has been considered to be due to the presence of a continental unstable transform-transform-compression triple-
junction.
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Nice tectonic setting reflection!
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