Onset of Iberian-European plate convergence: Late Cretaceous flexural response of a hot lithosphere (Aquitaine Basin, France)

Abstract

The Aquitaine Basin is closely linked to the evolution of the Pyrenees, providing precious evidence of the early stages of the Pyrenean orogeny in the Late Cretaceous. Although the timing and geometry of the Early Cretaceous rifting stage is well constrained in the Pyrenees and surrounding north Pyrenean basins, the subsequent early inversion stage has resisted characterization. In this study, we used well log correlations and interpretation of seismic reflection profiles to determine the Late Cretaceous evolution of the sedimentary record in the Aquitaine Basin, spanning the transition from the postrift stage to the beginning of convergence. We identified two main deformation stages during the Late Cretaceous with radically different basin geometries in the western and eastern portions of the Aquitaine Basin. The western part appears to remain under a thermal subsidence regime, inherited from the postrift stage initiated in the Turonian, with little to no deformation. In contrast, the eastern part records early inversion, as indicated by the presence of a well-defined Campanian flexural basin. Between them, Coniacian and Santonian strata indicate a sharply increasing distinction between a very slowly subsiding North Aquitaine Domain (condensed sedimentation) and a strongly subsiding South Aquitaine Domain. We interpret this development as a consequence of lithospheric buckling resulting from far-field compressive strain between the Eurasia and Africa plates. During the Campanian, northward convergence of the Iberia plate led to the formation of a flexural basin with a narrower, steeper geometry than the subsequent Eocene basin that formed in nearly the same region during the Pyrenean orogeny. We attribute this difference to the development of the foreland over a lithosphere that was not thermally reequilibrated in Campanian time, roughly 10 Myr after rifting. This thermal inheritance resulted in lithosphere of very low rigidity. Sedimentary basins formed during both the Coniacian-Santonian and Campanian to early Maastrichtian were thus accommodated by short-wavelength flexural deformation of the lithosphere, a distinctive deformation pattern that represents an immediate response to the onset of compressive strain.