On the impact of Argand’s «La Tectonique de l’Asie» on the evolution of Alpine and Mediterranean tectonic concepts

Abstract A significant part of the work of as reported by Argand (Comptes rendus de la XIIIe session du Congrès géologique international, Bruxelles 1922, Liège, fascicule, 1924a) « La tectonique de l’Asie » concerns the structure and kinematics of the Alps and the Mediterranean. Argand presented some entirely innovative concepts on the kinematics of these areas, showing for the first time, large-scale rotations of microplates and the structure of orogens including both the crust (Sial) and the mantle (Sima). In contrast to his previous alpine works, which were very rapidly accepted and emulated by the scientific community, these new interpretations of the Alpine and peri-Mediterranean chains were partly criticized, but mostly ignored. The scientific community continues to work and publish on these subjects disregarding the new concepts of as reported by Argand (Comptes rendus de la XIIIe session du Congrès géologique international, Bruxelles 1922, Liège, fascicule, 1924a) who presented the very first palinspastic reconstruction of the peri-mediterranean realm in addition to “lithospheric” sections across its chains and basins. Only after the acceptance of Plate Tectonics, geologists and geophysicists discovered on the base of paleomagnetic analyses that the Apennines, Sardinia, and Corsica had undergone anticlockwise rotations throughout the Miocene, thus confirming, the interpretations of Argand, presented in the “ Tectonique de l’Asie ”. However, most of these modern studies of the early 1970’s did not quote Argand, and still did not propose any lithospheric-scale model, nor paleogeographic reconstructions accounting for the entire western Mediterranean area, half a century after as reported by Argand (Comptes rendus de la XIIIe session du Congrès géologique international, Bruxelles 1922, Liège, fascicule, 1924a).