1 Citation
The Late Cretaceous orogeny followed by the Eocene collision of the Adriatic with the European plate dissected the Northern Calcareous Alps (NCA) by a number of well‑studied strike‑slip fault systems accommodating N‑S shortening and E‑W stretching. However, the post‑Miocene fault activity is poorly constrained due to lack of Neogene faulted sediments, and glacial erosion of geomorphic indicators. Using the protected environment of caves, we fill the knowledge gap in the post‑Miocene evolution of the NCA by paleostress analysis of 172 reactivated faults that offset passages in 28 caves near major faults. Constrained maximum age of caves, our results indicate that the NCA have been subjected to N to NE trending compression since Pliocene. Faulted speleothems dated with the 230Th/U method, indicate that the recorded present‑day stress state did not significantly change during the last 0.5 Ma.The dataset includes:Description of the caves and speleothem sample sitesFault-slip data from the studied caves in the Northern Calcareous AlpsResults of paleostress analysis