The South Pyrenean triangle zone represents the southernmost front of the Pyrenees at its central portion deforming the Upper Eocene‐Miocene Ebro Basin deposits. Two main structures characterize its western termination, the Barbastro anticline and the San Román backthrust, which detached on the Barbastro Formation (and lateral equivalents), an Upper Eocene‐Lower Oligocene syntectonic evaporite‐rich formation that acted as a multidetachment unit. Northward, the south directed Pyrenean thrust unit (i.e., Gavarnie‐Sierras thrust sheet) detached along the Middle‐Upper Triassic evaporitic rocks to finally ramp up and glide along the same Upper Eocene‐Lower Oligocene multidetachment unit. A multidisciplinary approach allowed constructing a detailed structural and stratigraphic model of the study area. The workflow consisted of (1) constraining the geometry and structural architecture based on surface geology, interpretation of seismic lines (>900 km), and wells and (2) obtaining the 3‐D density distribution of the multidetachment unit using gravity stochastic inversion (more than 7,000 gravity stations and 1,500 density data). The geometry of the sole thrust of the Gavarnie‐Sierras thrust sheet was controlled by the distribution of the evaporite‐rich units of the Barbastro Fm. Weak detachments promoted thrust salient formation and thrust flat geometries. The western termination of the South Pyrenean triangle zone is defined as a westward transition from a ramp‐dominated and multiple triangle zone to a detachment‐dominated one. Its geometry, kinematics, and location were controlled by the heterogeneous lithology of the Barbastro Fm. and its basal, halite‐based detachment southern pinch‐out.
Contractional deformation in the transition between the Iberian and Catalan Coastal Ranges (Linking Zone) generated both thin‐skinned structures detached in low‐strength Triassic units and basement‐involved structures. To evaluate their extent and relative contribution to the overall structure, we carried out a study combining structural geology and gravimetry. New gravity data (938 stations) and density determinations (827 samples) were acquired and combined with previous existing databases to obtain Bouguer anomaly and residual Bouguer anomaly maps of the study area. Seven serial and balanced cross sections were built, their depth geometries being constrained through the 2.5‐D gravity modeling and the 3‐D gravity inversion that we accomplished. The residual Bouguer anomaly map shows a good correlation between basement antiforms and gravity highs whereas negative anomalies mostly correspond to (i) Meso‐Cenozoic synclines and (ii) Neogene‐Quaternary basins. Cross sections depict a southern, thick‐skinned domain where extensional, basement faults inherited from Late Jurassic‐Early Cretaceous times were inverted during the Cenozoic. To the north, we interpret the existence of both Triassic‐detached and basement‐involved deformation domains. The two deformation styles are vertically overlapped in the southernmost part of the Catalan Coastal Ranges but relay both across and along strike in the Eastern Iberian Range. These basement and cover relationships and their along‐strike variations are analyzed in terms of the interplay between structural inheritance, its obliquity to the shortening direction, and the continuity and effectiveness of Triassic décollements in the study area.
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