Zona delle Giudicarie

Representation and status

Color RGB

R: 241 G: 239 B: 237

Rank

tectonic zone

Validity

Unit is not in Use

Status

local name (informal)

Nomenclature

Deutsch

Judikarien-Zone

Français

Zone des Giudicarie

Italiano

Zona delle Giudicarie

English

Giudicarie Zone

Historical Variants

Giudicarie Zone (TK500 / Gouffon et al. 2024)

Hierarchy and sequence

Subordinate units

• Zona delle Giudicarie esterna
• Zona delle Giudicarie interna

Palaenography and tectonic

Tectonic unit (resp. main category)

• South Alpine

Kind of protolith

• tectonic

Metamorphism

non metamorphic

References

Definition

Gouffon Yves (Editor) (2024) : Tectonic Map of Switzerland 1:500000, Explanatory notes. Federal Office of Topography swisstopo, Wabern

p.111: The Giudicarie Zone is a NNE–SSW trending Cenozoic sinistral transfer zone displacing the Tonale Fault to the north (Pustertal Line), kinematically linked with the post-nappe folding of the Tauern Window and the eastward lateral escape of the Eastern Alps (Laubscher 1991). This zone is structurally divided into an internal part, kinematically linked to the Lower Orobic Imbricates, and an external part, linked to the Milan Belt. The Giudicarie Zone is bounded to the west by the Giudicarie Fault (see § 10.1). Along the northern segment of this fault, the Giudicarie Zone is juxtaposed against the Austroalpine nappes (just at the eastern edge and outside the Tectonic Map of Switzerland). The southern segment separates the Internal Giudicarie Zone from the (older) Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene Adamello Batholith and the Val Trompia Unit that is a Lower Orobic imbricate in the Bergamasc Alps. To the southwest, the Internal Giudicarie Zone is kinematically linked to the Val Trompia Thrust. Within the Giudicarie Zone, strain partitioning between strike-slip and thrust faults resulted in around N–S trending transfer faults connecting ESE- and S-directed thrusts involving the crystalline basement (Picotti et al. 1995, Verwater et al. 2021). The N – S trending transfer faults are often reactivated and inverted Mesozoic extensional faults. An important one, north of Lago di Garda (Ballino Fault), coincides with the facies change between the Mesozoic Lombardian Basin and the Trento Plateau (Castellarin 1972). The thrusts in the Internal Giudicarie Zone, west of the Ballino Fault, represent the up-section propagation of the structures forming the ramp anticline of the Val Trompia and south Giudicarie, involving basement, sedimentary cover and, at depth, the underpinnings of the Adamello Batholith. The only fragment of basement east of the Giudicarie Fault in the area of the map occurs along the Sabion Fault, a small ramp anticline probably reactivating a Permian–Mesozoic structural high. The structures in the Internal Giudicarie Zone consist of short NE–SW oriented frontal ramp anticlines, connected by long, N – NE oriented lateral ramps and synclines, often reactivating Mesozoic normal faults (Trevisan 1938). Some E–W strike-slip faults occur west of Riva del Garda. They appear to be the continuation of the Val Trompia Thrust during its final dextral reactivation in the Late Miocene.