Late Cenozoic mineralization, orogenic collapse and slab detachment in theEuropean Alpine Belt

It is known that mineralization in orogenic belts often occurs in extension al settings late in the collisional history, and without voluminous co-temp oral magmatism. in search of the underlying geodynamic processes we conside r the spatial and temporal distribution of Late Cenozoic hydrothermal miner alization in the European Alpine Belt and relate this to the distribution o f heat in the lithosphere as inferred from seismic tomography. Specifically , we propose a hypothesis for mineralization in the European Alpine Belt in volving increase in heat flow and fluid flow in response to tearing and det achment of lithosphere slabs and concomitant emplacement of the hot astheno sphere at lower crustal levels. We conclude that detailed knowledge of lith osphere/mantle structure and processes can help to define potentially miner alized zones within regions of orogenic collapse. Our approach pioneers the application of lithosphere and mantle tomography to metallogenesis and to earth resources exploration. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights rese rved.