Volcanic successions and the role of destructional events in the Western Mátra Mountains, Hungary: implications for the volcanic structures / Successions volcanologiques et événements tectoniques dans les Monts Mátra occidentaux : implications pour les structures volcaniques

Abstract

Abstract The original volcanic edifice of the western part of the mid-Miocene Matra Mountains, North Hungary, may have been a group of small- scale andesitic centres built upon an ignimbrite sheet of the Middle Rhyolite Tuff of the Pannonian Basin. A previously suggested large caldera is not supported by the available volcanological, structural-geological, and geomorphological data. Late Miocene to Pleistocene tectonic movements resulted in the asymmetrical uplift of the mountains, broken up by NW-SE and NE-SW-trending faults. As a response, long-term tectonic displacements as well as catastrophic debris avalanches and lahars contributed to the rearrangement of volcanic successions and orographie elements probably in the latest Miocene to Pliocene.