Abstract
Recent sedimentologic and palynologic studies in the Belasian Sandstone (Lusitanian Basin) have greatly improved the knowledge of the palaeogeographic significance and chronostratigraphical position of the unit. This paper focuses particularly on the lower boundary, demonstrating its unconformable nature and proposing a relationship with the beginning of oceanic opening in the Atlantic sector near the Lusitanian Basin, north of the Tagus Abyssal Plain, during the early Aptian. This extensional event may have caused thermal and isostatic basement uplift that triggered the synchronous and widespread onset of a coarse-grained depositional system that overlies the breakup unconformity. This can be considered as a type 1 sequence boundary with the transgressive surface juxtaposed, and the Belasin sandstone as a transgressive and immediate post-rift systems tract. Comparison with similar unconformities in other basins points to the hypothesis that the breakup between Iberia (Lusitanian Basin) and Newfoundland affected sea level throughout the North Atlantic region, reinforcing the recognition of the lower Aptian unconformity as one of the most important sequence boundaries of the Atlantic and Tethyan Cretaceous.
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