Large depressions, thickened terraces, and gravitational deformation in the Ebro River valley (Zaragoza area, NE Spain): Evidence of glauberite and halite interstratal karstification

Abstract

In the studied reach of the Ebro Valley, the terrace and pediment sediments deposited over glauberite- and halite-bearing evaporites show local thickenings (>50m) recording dissolution-induced synsedimentary subsidence. Recent data on the lithostratigraphy of the evaporite sequence allow relating the alluvium thickenings with either halite or glauberite dissolution. The alluvium-filled dissolution basin underlying the youngest terraces (T8–T11) is ascribed to halite karstification; the top of a halite unit approximately 75m thick is situated 40–15m below the valley bottom. The thickenings of terrace (T1–T7) and pediment sediments are attributed to interstratal glauberite karstification: (1) Coincidence between the elevation range of the terraces and that of the glauberite-rich unit. Glauberite beds reach 30 and 100m in single-bed and cumulative thickness, respectively. (2) The exposed bedrock underlying thickened alluvium shows abundant subsidence features indicative of interstratal karstification. The most common structure corresponds to hectometer-scale sag basins with superimposed collapses in the central sector of each basin. The subsided bedrock is frequently transformed into dissolution-collapse breccias showing a complete textural gradation, from crackle packbreccias to chaotic floatbreccias and karstic residues. (3) Paleokarst exposures show evidence of karstification confined to specific beds made up of secondary gypsum after precursory glauberite, partly dissolved and partly replaced. Despite the magnitude of the subsidence recorded by the thickened alluvium and unlike nearby tributaries, the terraces show a continuous and parallel arrangement indicating that the fluvial system was able to counterbalance subsidence by aggradation. A number of kilometer-size flat-bottom depressions have been developed in the valley margin, typically next to and inset into thickened terrace and pediment deposits. The subsidence structures exposed in artificial excavations excavated in the bottom of some depressions and the correlation between the altitudinal distribution of these basins and that of the glauberite-rich unit reveal that subsidence related to interstratal glauberite karstification is the main process involved in their genesis. This research ascribes for the first time the thickenings and deformation of specific terrace levels and pediment levels and the development of large karstic depressions to interstratal karstification of exceptionally thick glauberite units.