Late Cretaceous age of magmatism at Vršatec in the Pieniny Klippen Belt, Western Carpathians, Slovakia

Volcanic rocks in the Pieniny Klippen Belt (PKB) of the Western Carpathians have been the focus of geologists for over a century (e.g. Uhlig, 1890; Małkowski, 1921). Miocene volcanism is most common in the PKB. However, there are infrequent occurrences of Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Several magmatic bodies of Cretaceous age have already been described in the PKB, including basalts at Hanigovce and Biała Woda, as well as peperites at Vršatec, and Velykyi Kamenets. The magmatic body in Vršatec occurs within the Upper Cretaceous marlstones of the Lalinok Formation, the age of which was previously determined to be younger than 100 Ma (Spišiak et al., 2011). Our new U-Pb zircon dating indicates the magmatic age to be ca. 80 Ma. This new age can be used as a benchmark for the forthcoming provenance studies of the surrounding clastic rocks in the PKB and the Outer Carpathians flysch.