Presently, little is known about the provenance and depositional ages of clastic metasedimentary rocks of the Badenweiler–Lenzkirch Zone (BLZ), which is squeezed between high-grade gneisses of the Central and Southern Black Forest Gneiss complexes. This lack of knowledge prevents detailed correlations with other sedimentary units and limits our understanding of the pre- to syn-Variscan evolution in Central Europe. In this stud...

The island of Donousa consists of a variegated metasedimentary sequence cut by arc-type granitoid dykes. Detrital zircon U–Pb ages and the presence of volcanic and ultramafic detritus suggest that the protoliths of the metasedimentary rocks were deposited in a Campanian forearc basin later than 76 Ma. D1 stacking of the forearc deposits occurred at upper crustal levels (P max = 0.4 GPa) with staurolite present as a stable phas...

U–Pb ages were determined by split-stream LA-SF/MC-ICPMS in garnets from UHT granulite xenoliths (Star mine, South Africa; 124 Ma). They give a considerable age range of 400 million years with well-defined maximas at 3.09, 3.01 and 2.75 Ga. The oldest peak overlaps with the changeover from tonalites to K-granites at 3.14–3.04 Ga and with zircon ages of the mid-crustal granulites of the Vredefort dome (3.1 Ga) in the wake of th...

Results of a combined petrological, geochemical and geochronological study suggest that metasedimentary rock units in the Krndija region of the Slavonian Mountains, Croatia, were affected by at least three major tectonometamorphic imprints: during the Middle Ordovician (Sardic event), the early Carboniferous (Variscan event), and the Cretaceous (Alpine event). All three metamorphic phases are established by electron microprobe...

Petrographic observations and in situ U–Pb ages of melilitites, foidites, basanites, phonolites, and trachytes from the southern part of the Central European Volcanic Province (CEVP) and related plutonic inclusions therein reveal two distinct age groups separated by a gap of ~ 20 Myr. A late Cretaceous to early Eocene group (~ 73–47 Ma; Taunus, Lower Main plain, Odenwald and Kraichgau area, Bonndorfer Graben and Freiburger Buc...

The Altenberg–Teplice Volcanic Complex (ATVC) is a large ~ NNW–SSE trending volcano-plutonic system in the southern part of the Eastern Erzgebirge (northern Bohemian Massif, south-eastern Germany and northern Czech Republic). This study presents high precision U–Pb CA-ID-TIMS zircon ages for the pre-caldera volcano-sedimentary Schönfeld–Altenberg Complex and various rocks of the caldera stage: the Teplice rhyolite, the microgr...

Late Paleozoic (Variscan) magmatism is widespread in Central Europe. The Lusatian Block is located in the NE Bohemian Massif and it is part of the Saxothuringian Zone of the Variscan orogen. It is bordered by two major NW-trending shear zones, the Intra-Sudetic Fault Zone towards NE and the Elbe Fault Zone towards SW. The scarce Variscan igneous rocks of the Lusatian Block are situated close to these faults. We investigated 19...

The Namibian Mesozoic successions may be remnant of a high dynamic sedimentary system that is characterized by multiple stages of sediment accumulation and erosion with contemporaneous homogenization starting with the deposition of the Permo-Carboniferous Dwyka Group strata and continues at least until the Lower Cretaceous. The Lower Cretaceous sedimentary system is interpreted to have involved at least an area covering the wh...