Abstract
The structuration of the southeastern quarter of the Iberian Peninsula (eastern Betics and Iberian foreland), since Messinian time, was the result of a series of complex deformational events, as related to a major NNE-SSW sinistral shear zone disrupting the southeasternmost part of the Betic cordilleras (Trans-Alboran-Palomares shear zone; TAPSZ). Deformation along this shear zone was characterized by two differentiated and sequential scenarios: 1) periods of stress-build-up associated to momentary slip-obstruction along the TAPSZ, involving NW-directed indentation of the southeastern Iberian domain, and 2) periods of stress-release resulting from the lateral escape of wedge-shaped blocks, thus allowing full-scale strike-slip displacements along the TAPSZ. These events imposed compressional stress fields on the Iberian foreland, with a series of consequences such as alkaline volcanism in Calatrava and Cofrentes, protorift zones, changes in previous structural trends, localized uplift/doming processes, and changes in the sedimentary records of sorne basins.
Highlights
The Betics have been classically divided into external and internal zones regarding deformation and metamorphism
In this paper we propose a model for the structuration of the southeastern quarter of the Iberian Peninsula since Messinian time, involving complex/sequential deformations resulting from a progressively rotating block within a NNE-SSW sinistral shear zone, with two well differentiated scenarios: LATE CENOZOIC IDENTATlON/ESCAPE TECTONICS IN THE EASTERN BETIC CORDILLERAS
The deformations of the Iberian foreland which can be thought of in terms of distal disturbances as related to these eastern Betics events, are of five types: 1) crustal upward-arching affecting a subcircular dome-like zone (Ruidera uplift) in front of the western Prebetic area; 2) disruption and dragging of the usually NW-SE-oriented Hercynian trends; 3) generation of two symmetrically disposed impactogen-related rift arms, the Calatrava volcanic province (CVP), and the Teruel trough, which will have contrasted evolutions; 4) a series of effects in the sedimentary records of most Tertiary basins of centrallsoutheastern Iberia; and 5) elevation of the Spanish Central System and the Toledo and Altomira mountains by means of inverse faults
Summary
The Betics have been classically divided into external and internal zones regarding deformation and metamorphism (fig. 1; Fontbote, 1983).
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