The Agost Basin (Betic Cordillera, Alicante province, Spain): a pull-apart basin involving salt tectonics

Miocene tectono-sedimentary evolution of the eastern external Betic Cordillera (Spain)

“…3 Ma gap recorded in the study area was probably related to a local/regional regression that leads to an emersion at the beginning of the compressional thin-skinned tectonics. A similar situation has been recently mentioned for the eastern External Betic Zone in the Alicante area (Martín-Martín et al, 2018a, 2018b where a gap related to compressional tectonics has been proposed affecting the Langhian-Serravallian p.p. In the study area, this tectonics was pre-dated both by compression and folding and by lithostatic load of the Sierra de La Pila Nappe.…”

“…Tent-Manclús, Estévez, and Martín-Martín (2000; and references therein) interpreted these deposits as olithostrome-like or 'salt glacier' deposits. In the eastern External Betics the salt glaciers are related to overflow of Triassic clays and gypsum from the basal level of stacked superficial nappes or from diapirs (Martín-Martín et al, 2018a, 2018b. In the SP sector, this event appears to be contemporaneous with the emplacement of the Subbetic Nappe, despite a continuous minor supply of reworked (and probably weathered) Triassic terrains and seems to extend over the whole Miocene record, as deduced from mineralogical and petrographic data.…”

“…This sequence shows the supply of reworked clays and gypsum from the erosion of Triassic terrains and is thought to be deposited on a slope realm (Lithofacies O and P) by the presence of olisthostromes. Equivalent deposits have been described recently in the eastern External Betic Zone from the Alicante area and assigned to the late Miocene (Martín-Martín et al, 2018a, 2018b. In this sector this sequence is unconformably followed by the Pliocene-Quaternary succession (Lithofacies T).…”

“…This paper tries to fill the current gap concerning the Miocene stratigraphic evolution of the eastern EBZ through an interdisciplinary study taking advantage both from the good quality of outcrops and the continuity of the stratigraphic record in the Sierra del Carche-Pinoso Corridor-Sierra de la Pila sector. The results were compared and completed with the previous studies concerning the EBZ (Sanz De Galdeano & Buforn, 2005;Guerrera et al, 2014;Martín-Martín et al, 2018a, 2018b; and references therein).…”

“…In the region a Cretaceous tectonic inversion from extension to compression occurred, similarly to what was observed in the western Mediterranean Alpine chains (Guerrera et al, 2014;Guerrera & Martín-Martín, 2014a; and references therein). In the EBZ the Mesozoic normal faults evolved during the Tertiary under compressive deformation as strike-slip faults, and later as thrusts (Sanz de Galdeano & Buforn, 2005;Martín-Martín et al, 2018a;Martín-Martín, Guerrera, Alcalá, Serrano, & Tramontana, 2018b;Sissingh, 2008). In the Miocene many intramontane basins developed whose geometry and stratigraphic architecture were controlled by re-arrangements of blocks and faults.…”