At convergent plate margin, part of the continental crust can be subducted and exhumed. During continental subduction a pre-existing crust is reworked. Remnants of an older orogen are recycled and subjected to (ultra)-high-pressure metamorphism. During subduction, polycyclic rocks undertake a second metamorphic cycle, whereas monocyclic rocks are metamorphosed for the first time. In reworked rocks the pre-subduction record is overprinted and partially or completely lost. Despite this difficulty, reconstructing the pre-subduction history of the recycled crust is crucial, because pre-subduction characters (such as H₂O content) can strongly influence how rocks respond to reworking during subduction.

The Dora-Maira Massif is worldwide renowned as a (ultra)-high-pressure continental terrane. However, its northern part remained essentially unexplored in recent times. In this thesis work the northern Dora-Maira Massif is used as a case study to investigate recycling of continental crust. The aim is to constrain what type of crust is subducted and exhumed and to unravel the role of fluids during subduction of polycyclic material. Field work, petrology, thermodynamic modelling and geochronology are integrated.

New field and geochronological evidence indicate that the northern Dora-Maira Massif displays an internal architecture more complex than what previously thought. It is subdivided in several tectonic units likewise the southern Dora-Maira Massif. Chemical and isotopic records of the reworked rocks reveal a pre-Alpine history spanning from the Lower Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic. A polycyclic basement preserves relicts of a pre-Alpine Barrovian metamorphism connected with the Variscan orogenesis. The absence of granulite-facies partially molten pre-Alpine rocks indicates that only the upper crust was reworked in the Dora-Maira Massif.

Thermodynamic modelling indicates that polycyclic micaschists were rehydrated between the Variscan and the Alpine peak metamorphism. Polycyclic garnet texture and chemistry and metamorphic zircon record a main episode of fluid infiltration at the end of the Variscan cycle and not during the Alpine cycle. Pre-Alpine re-hydration of the upper crust allowed high-pressure re-equilibration during subduction.