Reply to discussion by Elter and Padovano of ‘Deformation during exhumation of medium‐ and high‐grade metamorphic rocks in the Variscan chain in northern Sardinia (Italy)’

We welcome the invaluable opportunity that the discussion\ud\udby Elter and Padovano offers us in order to corroborate\ud\udthe conclusions of our paper and clarify some aspects of\ud\udthe geodynamic setting of Sardinia in the context of the\ud\udSouthern Variscan Belt. Our response will be focused on\ud\udaspects concerning (1) orthogonal collision, (2) High Grade\ud\udMetamorphic Complex (HGMC), (3) transcurrent tectonics\ud\udand (4) suture.\ud\udThe paper by Carosi et al. (2009) reports many original\ud\udstructural data from the central-northern portion of the\ud\udVariscan basement of Sardinia highlighting the occurrence\ud\udof sinistral and dextral shear zones. The final interpretation\ud\udalso takes into account a huge amount of structural,\ud\udkinematic, petrological and geochronological data recorded\ud\udover the last ten years by the research group in Pisa across\ud\udseveral transects in northern Sardinia. It is worth noting that\ud\udnone of the proposed relevant papers by Elter and Padovano\ud\uddeal with the geology of the study area; they only deal with\ud\udthe northeastern portion of the HGMC, or other portions of\ud\udthe Southern Variscan Belt.\ud\udIn their discussion of our contribution, Elter and Padovano\ud\udconsider two contributions by Corsini and Rolland (2009)\ud\udand Padovano et al. (2009), both published after our paper\ud\udwas accepted in September 2008. The first was published\ud\udonline on 4 February 2009 and the second is an abstract\ud\udpublished in September 2009. Obviously, we could not\ud\udconsider these two contributions when writing our own, but\ud\udwith the aim of gaining a better knowledge of Variscan\ud\udgeological history it is useful to discuss some of the\ud\udcriticisms raised