Thermal and structural evolution of the external Western Alps: Insights from (U-Th-Sm)/He thermochronology and RSCM thermometry in the Aiguilles Rouges/Mont Blanc massifs

In the Western Alps, the External Crystalline Massifs (ECM) are key places to investigate the kinematics and thermal structure of a collisional crustal wedge, as their paleo-brittle/ductile transition is now exhumed at the surface. New (U-Th-Sm)/He data on zircon and new Raman Spectroscopy on Carbonaceous Material (RSCM) data from the Aiguilles Rouges and the Mont Blanc massifs, coupled to HeFTy thermal modeling, constrain the thermal evolution and exhumation of the massifs. In the cover of the Aiguilles Rouges massif, we found that the maximal temperature was about 320 degrees C (+/-25 degrees C), close to the maximal temperature reached in the cover of the Mont Blanc massif (similar to 350 degrees C +/-25 degrees C). We show that, after a fast heating period, the thermal peak lasted 10-15 Myrs in the Mont Blanc massif, and probably 5-10 Myrs in the Aiguilles Rouges massif. This thermal peak is synchronous with crustal shortening documented in the basement (U-Th-Sm)/He data and thermal modeling point toward a coeval cooling of both massifs, like other ECM, at around 18 Ma +/-1 Ma. This cooling was related to an exhumation due to the initiation of frontal crustal ramps below the ECM, quite synchronously along the Western Alps arc. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.