Basin Research (2009) 21, 139141, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2117.2008.00377.

A comment on Late- to post-orogenic exhumation of

the Central Pyrenees revealed through combined
thermochronological data and modelling by M.
Gibson, H. D. Sinclair, G. J. Lynn and F. M. Stuart
J. Babault, n S. Bonnet,w G. Ruizz and J. Van Den Driesschew
n

Department of Geology, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

wGeosciences Rennes, Universite de Rennes 1, Campus de Beaulieu, Rennes, France
zIGH, University of Neuchatel, Neuchatel, Switzerland
CNRS/INSU, UMR 6118, Campus de Beaulieu, Rennes, France

In a recent contribution to Basin Research, Gibson et al.

(2007) advanced new thermochronological data from
dierent massifs in the Pyrenees to argue for a 2 km of
continuous post- orogenic exhumation since 30 Ma.
Gibson et als model (2007) is based on low-temperature
thermochronometry from dierent sub-vertical proles.
This included apatite ssion-track (AFT, most of them
being previously published in Sinclair et al., 2005) and the
rst apatite U-Th/He (AHe) data from the Pyrenees. Using
Pecube software (Braun, 2003) they interpret their data
as revealing a dramatic change in exhumation at about
30 Ma from rapid ( 1.5 mm yr  1) to very low rates
( 0.03 mm yr  1) as earlier suggested by Fitzgerald et al.
(1999) using the sole AFT thermochronometer from the
same plutons. They considered such a decrease in exhumation rate to reect the transition into a post- orogenic
state for the mountain belt. In addition, the presence of
Oligocene to early Miocene AHe ages at the surface
today is used by Gibson et al. (2007) to negate a possible
reactivation of erosion during late Neogene as it has been
inferred by geological and geomorphological data (Coney
et al., 1996; Babault et al., 2005, 2006), and AFT data
(Fitzgerald et al., 1999). Moreover Gibson et al. (2007) state
that the preservation of peneplain surfaces at high altitude,
as inferred by Babault et al. (2005), could not be possible.
Our major concern with the study by Gibson et al.
(2007) is that they implicitly consider that the rocks they
sampled were exposed at the Earths surface only in
the very recent past, that is at 0 Ma. Gibson et al. (2007)
recognize that their data do not allow determining the
exhumation history since 30 Ma. They cannot, therefore,
rule out the possibility that the sampled rocks rose to the
surface, or very near to the surface, in the late Miocene.
Most of exhumation since 30^20 Ma should be included
in the process of peneplanation at high elevation that
develops before the late Miocene as proposed by Babault
et al. (2005). AFTand AHe data are in agreement with such
a scenario and cannot therefore be used as evidence to
Correspondence: J. Babault, Department of Geology, Universitat
Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain. E-mail: Julien.
Babault@uab.es

discard the well documented preservation of erosional

surfaces in altitude in the Pyrenees. Finally, it is not
surprising that Gibson et al. (2007) were not been able to
determine a Plio -Quaternary increase of erosion, which
corresponds mainly to a deep dissection of the former
smoothed topography by uvial network. Indeed, the
amplitude of the uvial incision, which never exceed
1000 m, was not sucient to alter the shape of the
isotherms below the Pyrenean topography during
the Plio -Pleistocene in a manner it imprints the AHe
thermochronological data (see Braun, 2003).
Firstly, contradictions in the estimates of rock exhumation by Gibson etal. (2007) question the robustness of their
conclusions.The authors state that (p. 331) Since 29 Ma, the
amount of exhumation cannot have exceeded 2 km, at an average
rate of o0.03 mm yr  1, which they followed by the opposite
assertion: The requirement of at least 2 km of rock exhumation
. . . since 30 -20 Ma means . . . . Whatever the geothermal
gradient they used to calculate the 2 km of crustal material
removed since 30 Ma, 0.03 mm yr  1 of exhumation during
30 Ma correspond denitely to 900 m of erosion, not 2 km
as stated!
In essence, the thermochronological data documents
the patterns of exhumation and rates up to a depth
corresponding to a closure temperature, taken in Gibson
et al. (2007) at 70 1C for AHe and near 100 1C for AFT data.
Gibson et al. (2007) used geothermal gradients that vary
from 20 to 35 1C km  1. Therefore these temperatures
correspond to a range of crustal depths between 2 and
5 km. When the rocks are sampled at the Earths surface,
as in the study by Gibson et al. (2007), there is a gap in the
exhumation history of the rocks (between the closure
depth and the surface) that does not imprint on AFT nor
AHe data. Consequently, the details of the exhumation
between the closure depth and the surface (dened here
as the post- orogenic exhumation) cannot be documented
solely by thermochronological data.
(1) Gibson et al. (2007) used Pecube software (Braun,
2003) to model the exhumation history of the Axial Zone
(see their Fig. 4). There is an important assumption in
their modelling of exhumation histories that is not clearly
stated: the authors assumed that the nal exhumation of

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Journal Compilation r Blackwell Publishing Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists

139

J. Babault et al.
the samples (nal exposure to the surface) occurred in the
very recent past, that is at 0 Ma in their simulations
(Fig.1a). Given this assumption, the modelled exhumation
rates they obtained for the . . . time-averaged, post-orogenic
history of the Pyrenees [are] at least an order of magnitude slower
than during the last phases of syn-orogenic exhumation (Gibson
et al., 2007, p. 333).Their results would consequently imply
a sudden 50-folds decrease in the pattern of the mountain
belt exhumation. These conclusions are therefore derived
from the assumption that the samples were recently
brought to the surface. Unfortunately, there is no evidence
to support this assumption.
(2) AFT and AHe results discussed by Gibson et al.
(2007) show an impressive similarity of ages whatever the
thermochronological system considered. Given the
range of temperatures involved for the partial annealing/
retention zones of AFT (120^60 1C) and AHe (80^35 1C),
the mountain range must have experienced several
kilometres of exhumation in a very short time interval
(only a very few million of years), up to a temperature lower
or in the order of 35 1C.The simplest interpretation of the
data would suggest that the nal exhumation history of the
Central Pyrenees, from the isotherm 35 1C to the very near
surface, occurred in the continuity of the syn- orogenic
exhumation as dened by Gibson et al. (2007) (Fig. 1b).
If a geothermal gradient of 35 1C km  1 and a surface
temperature of 0 1C, and, rates of 1.0^1.5 mm yr  1 (Gibson
et al., 2007) are assumed, then the time necessary to
remove the nal 2 km of crustal material between the
AHe closure temperature (70 1C) and the surface would
only represent  2 Ma of Pyrenean exhumation.
(3) Geological and geomorphological data support
the idea that the main nal exhumation history of the
Pyrenees did not take place during all the Cenozoic. A
striking feature of the Pyrenees is the presence of highly
elevated, low-relief, erosional surfaces. These surfaces
truncate both the Palaeozoic basement rocks of the Axial
Zone and Mesozoic sedimentary cover (Babault et al.,
2005 and references herein). In the southern ank of the
Pyrenees, sub-horizontal uppermost top-wedge alluvial
deposits outcrop at an elevation of up to 2000 m asl where
they merge into the highly elevated, low-relief erosional
surfaces of the Axial Zone (e.g. Coney et al., 1996). In the
eastern Pyrenees, Late Miocene sediments [Vallesian in
age references in Roca, 1996 (11.1^8.7 Ma, e.g. Garce s et al.,
1996)] onlap these surfaces in the Cerdanya area allowing
these surfaces to be dated as pre-late Miocene in age
(Babault et al., 2005 and references herein).These pre-Late
Miocene erosional surfaces are presently preserved on the
hillcrests. Their presence indicates that bedrock erosion
has been negligible in this region (at the scale of the
Pyrenean exhumation) since the Late Miocene (after
11 Ma).This implies that the post- orogenic exhumation
of the Pyrenees occurred before the Late Miocene
(minimum age for cessation of bedrock exhumation;
Fig.1c) and not up to the present-day as argued by Gibson
et al. (2007). The use of these geological data in the
modelling undertaken by Gibson et al. (2007), would

140

Fig. 1. (a) Best modelled cooling history for the Maladeta

thermochronological data, modied form Fig. 1c of Gibson et al.
(2007).This modelling assumes a recent (0 Ma) nal bedrock
exhumation up to the surface (grey box) and then implies a
continuous post- orogenic exhumation for the last 30 Ma.
(b) Hypothetical cooling history assuming a bedrock exhumation
to the surface in the direct continuity of the syn- orogenic
exhumation (grey box). (c) Hypothetical cooling history, taking
into account geomorphological and geological data (Coney et al.,
1996; Babault et al., 2005, 2006) which indicates that bedrock
exhumation to the surface occurred before the Late Miocene
(grey box). Such a scenario considers the minimum conceivable
rate of post- orogenic exhumation. Pyrenean exhumation
probably lies between cases (b) and (c).

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Journal Compilation r Blackwell Publishing Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists

Comment on Late- to post-orogenic exhumation

have allowed a much more realistic determination of the
exhumation history of the Pyrenean orogen.
(4) Babault et al. (2005) presented a model for the
generation of the highly elevated, low-relief, erosional
surfaces of the Pyrenees that has been successfully tested
experimentally (Babault et al., 2007). This model supports
the view that piedmont sedimentation elevated the base
level of the chain and lowered the potential energy for
erosion, allowing high- elevation and low-relief erosional
surfaces to develop. The post- orogenic, low-relief
erosional surfaces formed primarily at high- elevation,
resulting into a Late Miocene Pyrenean plateau.

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Manuscript received 23 April 2008; Manuscript accepted 23 June

2008.

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Journal Compilation r Blackwell Publishing Ltd, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers and International Association of Sedimentologists

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