Interpretación paleoambiental del yacimiento de La Gloria 4 (Plioceno, Fosa de Teruel) a partir del análisis de facies y de asociaciones de gasterópodos y de mamíferos.

Abstract

Thc mammal site of La Gloria 4 is located to the west of the town of Teruel and hosts an outstanding vertebrate fauna of Lower Pliocene age (Lower Alfambrian, NM 14 zone>. The vertebrates occur at the uppermost part of a Turolian (Upper Miocene)/Pliocene succession formed of a lower terrigenous unit that comprises distal alluvial fan deposits, aud an upper stratigraphic unit made up by lacustrine carbonate and mari sediments. La Gloria 4 occurs within these shallow lake deposits. A cutbank open at the site of the vertebrate concentration allowed a detailed study of the section by integrating meso- and micro-seale facies observations, geometrie relationships betweeen the dcposits, insight from the gastropod faunes, and palaeoecological and taphonomic data inferred from the vertebrates. This integrated approach contributes a detailed interpretation of the environmental conditions in which the vertebrate remalns were concentrated. The locality is interpreted as a rcsult of the concentration of mammal remajos in marshy ponds which formed at low lakestands. In this setting, taphonomic evidence extracted from the mammal bones suggest their concentration xx'as autochtonous. The importance of desiccation/subaerial exposure events throughout the evolution of the lake system is outlined as a relevant palacoenvironmental condition that explains inany of the observed features of thc mammal site. Key-words: Facies analysis, Taphonomy, Paleoecology, Gastropods, Mammals, Neogene, Teruel Basin, Spain.