The Tabernas alluvial fan and lake system, southeast Spain: applications of mineral magnetic and pedogenic iron oxide analyses towards clarifying the Quaternary sediment sequences

Abstract

Mineral magnetic and soil iron oxide data are applied to questions of relative age correlation of alluvial fans and lake sediments in the Tabernas basin, southeast Spain, within a context of interaction between tectonics and climatic change. Within the Tabernas basin, the sediment sequences and morphological evolution of late Quaternary alluvial fans suggest climatic change as the primary control. The fans toe out at the upper margins of a former lake, created in response to tectonic uplift. Magnetic and iron oxide data from soils, particularly dithionite-extractable iron (Fe d), and frequency-dependent magnetic susceptibility ( χ FD%) accord with the relative age relationships suggested by more conventional field-based geomorphic observations. Magnetic data from the lake sediments suggest the main provenance characteristics of the sediments, but also reveal a shift in sediment sources towards the end of the lake period (probably during the late Pleistocene) to sediment supplied from a more active fluvial system from soil erosion within the Sierra de los Filabres part of the catchment. Hence, although the locations of the fans and the existence of the lake relate primarily to tectonics, the fan sequences themselves appear to be primarily climatically controlled, and there is evidence of a climatic influence over the source of sediment input into the lake during the late Pleistocene.