• Aims and Scope
• Call for papers
• Editorial and Advisory Board
• Subscriptions
• Table of contents
• Search this site

Young Quaternary fos sil graben in the Vistulian less AT Brzezie near Kraków (Carpathian Foredeep, south Poland)

 Marta Rauch-Włodarska¹, Tomasz Kalicki², Wojciech Włodarski³, Anna Budek²

 ¹ Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków Research Centre, Senacka 1, 31-002 Kraków, Poland; Galicia T. Group; e-mail: ndrauch@cyf-kr.edu.pl

² Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Department of Geomorphology and Hydrology Mountains and Uplands, Św. Jana 22, 31-018 Kraków, Poland; e-mail: budek@zg.pan.krakow.pl, kalicki@zg.pan.krakow.pl

³ Institute of Geology, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Maków Polnych 16, 61-686 Poznań, Poland; Galicia T. Group; e-mail: wojtekw@amu.edu.pl

 Abstract

In this paper we describe a fossil graben and associated normal faults and joints. The graben occurs in the section of the Vistulian (Weichselian) and Holocene sediments in an archaeological excavation site at Brzezie, in the central part of the Polish Carpathian Foredeep (Wieliczka-Gdów Upland, western part of the Sandomierz Basin). Normal faults strike mostly NNE-SSW and dip steeply about 65 - 85⁰. Some of them, namely master normal faults, bound the fossil graben. The joints form orthogonal pattern and are closely spaced close to the faults. They developed simultaneously with faulting. Normal faulting took place during the Vistulian – Mesoholocene (Neoholocene?) time, according to age of the archaeological artefacts which were found in the faulted sediments. The faulting was probably finished during the Neolithic or even later, during the Bronze Age. The NNE-striking normal faults connected with graben formation could have been produced by reactivation of a NE-striking sinistral regional fault in the basement.