Provenance of Mesozoic to Cenozoic circum-Mediterranean sandstones in relation to tectonic setting

The composition and stratigraphic relations of clastic strata in diverse sedimentary basins of the circum-Mediterranean region reflect a complete record of provenance relations since break-up of Pangea, neo-Tethyan taphrogenesis, and subsequent plate convergence between the two major plates of Europe and Africa, and other related microplates of Iberia, Adria, Mesomediterranean, and toward to the eastern Mediterranean, the Anatolian microplate. Since plate reorganization after the breakup of Pangea, at the end of Paleozoic-earliest Mesozoic, clastic wedges filled sedimentary basins within geodynamic settings evolving from intracontinental rifts, rifted-continental margins, protoceanic basins, arc-trench basin-systems, remnant ocean basins, foreland basin systems and intramontane and back-arc basins within the circum-Mediterranean region. The changing nature of clastic particles in these clastic wedges reflect the provenance relations from different source rocks within the spatial and temporal evolving geo-puzzle terranes, including relations between ophiolite-bearing, uplifted continental crust (both shallow to deep crust terranes), volcanic and sedimentary (particularly carbonate strata) source rocks. Mixed siliciclastic and carbonate shallow- to deep-marine clastic wedges are diffuse in many filled basin systems along the Mediterranean, as such as occurrence of volcaniclastic layers interbedded with siliciclastic wedges. The variable mosaic of source terranes within the Mediterranean region, offered the possibility to investigate provenance relations with a new plane of precision and sophistication, discriminating grain particles in clastic wedges using spatial (extrabasinal versus intrabasinal) and temporal (coeval versus noncoeval) distinction of detrital signals. The spatial/temporal approach in deciphering particles in clastic rocks has been widely used to detail the basinal dispersal pathways in different geotectonic settings, wherever mixed silicate and carbonate terranes act as the major source rocks, from rifted-continental margins to collisional orogens.