Geology (Architectural & Otherwise) of the Earth's Center, Part 26: Flysch in the Mist | Elephino, Boeotia, Greece
Facing west-northwestward. Taken 6.2 nanoparsecs from the Land of Oz, in the southeastern quadrant of the entirely nonexistent locale of Elephino. This pseudo-Hellenic name epitomizes the feeling I have whenever I try to pin down the exact location of this and my other photos shot while I was approaching Parnassus from the east.
I do know that I was west of Tsoukalades on what was then the main road from Thebes to Delphi, and that I had not yet reached the Kastri hogback.
My main source for understanding the geology of this tectonically fubarized region remains
- Nirta, Giuseppe, Giovanna Moratti, Luigi Piccardi, Domenico Montanari, Nicolaos Carras, Rita Catanzariti, Marco Chiari, and Marta Marcucci. “From Obduction to Continental Collision: New Data from Central Greece.” Geological Magazine 155:2 (2018), 377–421.
In previous posts I have been critical of both its contorted albeit typically academic prose and one of its key bedrock maps. But it contains another map, Figure 10, which is clear and most helpful. As are some of this article’s photos. One of the latter shows a place very close to the landscape shown above. Thanks to that, I was able to figure out the geology here.
At this point in my journey the rain and associated light-diffusing mist were at their maximum. The great, snowcapped Parnassus Massif stands smack dab in the center of the background, but the wet, sullen weather has reduced it to a faint and evanescent mass. More perplexing are the power-line pylons that march across the low ground to the right of the main road. They are ghostly to the point of near-invisibility. And so they appear on the original slide this image was scanned from. I’m not sure why.
What’s still quite vivid is the large excavated area, also at right, that exposes red bedrock that elsewhere on the hillside is a duller maroon where it’s partially covered by vegetation. This is the Pelagonian Flysch, Paleocene to Eocene in age. It’s younger than the Mesozoic carbonate rock, part of the dauntingly named Mesoautochthonous Unit, that now rests on top of it. This is an example of a sequence of sedimentary strata that was completely overturned during the formation of the Hellenides chain.
Flysch is a type of deep-water deposit that often contains turbidite beds. The Pelagonian variety is by no means the only kind one can see along this route. Also present are the Boeotian type, shown in Part 23, and another belonging to the Parnassus Nappe itself. I have a shot of that one, taken in Arachova, that is coming up later in this series. No doubt there’s a very good reason why all these flysches are red, but I haven’t come across an explanation yet.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Geology (Architectural & Otherwise) of the Earth's Center album.
Geology (Architectural & Otherwise) of the Earth's Center, Part 26: Flysch in the Mist | Elephino, Boeotia, Greece
Facing west-northwestward. Taken 6.2 nanoparsecs from the Land of Oz, in the southeastern quadrant of the entirely nonexistent locale of Elephino. This pseudo-Hellenic name epitomizes the feeling I have whenever I try to pin down the exact location of this and my other photos shot while I was approaching Parnassus from the east.
I do know that I was west of Tsoukalades on what was then the main road from Thebes to Delphi, and that I had not yet reached the Kastri hogback.
My main source for understanding the geology of this tectonically fubarized region remains
- Nirta, Giuseppe, Giovanna Moratti, Luigi Piccardi, Domenico Montanari, Nicolaos Carras, Rita Catanzariti, Marco Chiari, and Marta Marcucci. “From Obduction to Continental Collision: New Data from Central Greece.” Geological Magazine 155:2 (2018), 377–421.
In previous posts I have been critical of both its contorted albeit typically academic prose and one of its key bedrock maps. But it contains another map, Figure 10, which is clear and most helpful. As are some of this article’s photos. One of the latter shows a place very close to the landscape shown above. Thanks to that, I was able to figure out the geology here.
At this point in my journey the rain and associated light-diffusing mist were at their maximum. The great, snowcapped Parnassus Massif stands smack dab in the center of the background, but the wet, sullen weather has reduced it to a faint and evanescent mass. More perplexing are the power-line pylons that march across the low ground to the right of the main road. They are ghostly to the point of near-invisibility. And so they appear on the original slide this image was scanned from. I’m not sure why.
What’s still quite vivid is the large excavated area, also at right, that exposes red bedrock that elsewhere on the hillside is a duller maroon where it’s partially covered by vegetation. This is the Pelagonian Flysch, Paleocene to Eocene in age. It’s younger than the Mesozoic carbonate rock, part of the dauntingly named Mesoautochthonous Unit, that now rests on top of it. This is an example of a sequence of sedimentary strata that was completely overturned during the formation of the Hellenides chain.
Flysch is a type of deep-water deposit that often contains turbidite beds. The Pelagonian variety is by no means the only kind one can see along this route. Also present are the Boeotian type, shown in Part 23, and another belonging to the Parnassus Nappe itself. I have a shot of that one, taken in Arachova, that is coming up later in this series. No doubt there’s a very good reason why all these flysches are red, but I haven’t come across an explanation yet.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Geology (Architectural & Otherwise) of the Earth's Center album.