Fission track constraints on the thermal and tectonic evolution of the Apuseni Mountains (Romania)

New zircon and apatite fission-track (FT) data, including apatite thermal modelling, are combined with an extensive literature survey and reconnaissance-type structural fieldwork in the Eastern Apuseni Mountains. This leads to a better understanding of the complex structural and thermal history of a key area at the boundary between two megatectonic units in the Balkan peninsula, namely the Tisza and Dacia Mega-Units. Following Late Jurassic obduction of the Transylvanian ophiolites onto a part of the Dacia Mega-Unit, that is, the Biharia nappe system, both units were buried to a minimum of 8 km during late Early Cretaceous times when these units were underthrust below the Tisza Mega-Unit consisting of the present-day Codru and Bihor nappe systems. Tisza formed the upper plate during Early Cretaceous (‘Austrian’) east-facing orogeny. Turonian to Campanian zircon FT cooling ages (95–71 Ma) from the Bihor and Codru nappe systems and the Biharia and Baia de Aries¸ nappes (at present the structurally lowest part of the Dacia Mega-Unit) record exhumation that immediately followed a second Cretaceous- age (i.e. Turonian) orogenic event. Thrusting during this overprinting event was NW-facing and led to the overall geometry of the present-day nappe stack in the Apuseni Mountains. Zircon FT ages, combined with thermal modelling of the apatite FT data, show relatively rapid post-tectonic cooling induced by a third shortening pulse during the latest Cretaceous (‘Laramian’ phase), followed by slower cooling across the 120 –60 C temperature interval during latest Cretaceous to earliest Paleogene times (75–60 Ma). Cenozoic-age slow cooling (60–40 Ma) was probably related to erosional denudation postdating ‘Laramian’ large-scale updoming.