Geology of Serbia

The regional geology of Serbia describes the geologic structure and history inside the borders of Serbia.

Serbia is in recent geologic time a part of the Eurasian Plate, but the bedrock lithologies are witness to a diverse geologic history. In a tectonic sense, Serbia is part of an orogenic system that is composed of the Alpine, Carpathian, and Dinaride orogenic belts. Its territory can be divided into five geotectonic units of differing genesis:

The Sava Zone (named after the river Sava) is an oceanic suture that strikes roughly NNW to SSE through Serbia and is mostly covered in the north by the sediments of the Pannonian Basin. Outcrops can be found in the Fruška Gora (Fruška mountains). Here the unit is composed of blueschists and ophiolites. In the south outcrops of the Sava Zone occur in the Balkan and Rhodope Mountains. This includes the Senonian Flysch and the rocks cropping out in the Jastrebac Window.

The Jadar-Kopaonik Thrust Sheet is a NW-SE striking unit in the southern footwall of the Sava Zone and the northern hangingwall of the Drina-Ivanjica Thrust Sheet. Most of the outcrops are ophiolites from the Western Vardar ocean, but there are some windows into the underlying basement. The Jadar unit in western Serbia (Jadar Region) is the largest window into the underlying Adriatic units of the Jadar-Kopaonik Thrust Sheet. Two smaller windows crop out farther to the south. The Studenica unit lies in the west and the Kopaonik unit in the east of the thrust sheet.

The Supragetic nappes form a N-S striking belt in eastern Serbia, where they crop out in the Balkan Mountains (Stàra planinà). They are part of the paleogeographic realm of Dacia. The Supragetic is subdivided into the Ranovac and Vlasina unit.

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