Structure of the Maláguide Complex near Vélez Rubio (Eastern Betic Cordillera, SE Spain)

Abstract

The Maláguide Complex of the Betic Cordillera represents a tectonic element which mostly underwent brittle deformation during the Alpine orogeny, and that covers the high‐pressure/low‐temperature (HP/LT) complexes of the internal Betic Cordillera. The evolution of this complex can help to determine both when the lower HP/LT complexes began to exhume and the behavior of the upper plate during this process. Moreover, this complex is a key element to understanding the relationships between the late orogenic extension in the internal Betic Cordillera and the coeval compression in the External Zones of the same mountain chain. This paper focuses in the geometry and kinematics of the Alpine structures of this Maláguide Complex in the eastern Betic Cordillera, near the village of Vélez Rubio. We propose that these Alpine structures can be grouped into three main stages. First stage (Paleogene) began with a synmetamorphic slaty cleavage produced in anchizone conditions. This foliation is associated with northward vergent structures and was probably connected with the superposition of the Maláguide Complex over the Alpujárride during the middle Eocene. This first stage ended with the thinning of the Maláguide Complex (Oligocene) by an extensional detachment with a top‐to‐the‐NNW sense of movement. Second stage records the convergence of the External and Internal Zones during the Aquitanian‐Burdigalian. This convergence was a right‐lateral transpression that produced back thrusts and extensional structures that exhumed the HP/LT rocks of the Alpujárride Complex. Third stage corresponds to the evolution from the late Burdigalian to the present‐day, when the Internal and External zones were welded together.