The role of extensional detachment systems in thinning the crust and exhuming granulites: analogies between the offshore Le Danois High and the onshore Labourd Massif in the Biscay/Pyrenean rifts
Large uncertainties remain about the architecture, timing and role of the structures responsible for high degrees of crustal thinning and the exhumation of mid-crustal granulites in the Pyrenean and Biscay rift systems. Both, Le Danois High in the North Iberian margin and the Labourd Massif in the Western Pyrenees preserve evidence of extensional detachment faults and include exhumed granulites, which are locally reworked in syn-rift sediments. In this study, we compare the crustal structure and their link to the overlying sediments at the two sites based on the interpretation of high quality 2D seismic reflection profiles offshore and field observations and published geological cross-sections onshore. New reported seismic and field observations support the interpretation that the Le Danois High and the Labourd Massif are capped by extensional detachment systems, advocating for a similar tectonic evolution of the two sites. We propose that the two detachment systems were responsible for high degrees of crustal thinning and the exhumation of the pre-rift brittle-ductile transition and associated mid-crustal granulites during Aptian to Cenomanian extension, leading to the formation of the Le Danois and Labourd crustal tapers. Tilted and uplifted during the Alpine convergence, the two basement blocks lay at present in the hanging-wall of major Alpine thrusts. Their position at overlapping, en-echelon hyperextended rift segments at the end of rifting, and the occurrence of shortcutting structures linking neighbouring rift segments, can explain the preservation of the rift-related detachment systems. This study not only proposes for the first time analogies between the offshore Le Danois High and the onshore Labourd Massif, but it also demonstrates the importance of extensional detachment systems in thinning the crust and exhuming mid-crustal granulites at the seafloor in the Biscay and Pyrenean domains during Aptian to Cenomanian extension.