Conodont colour alteration index (CAI) values from Upper Paleozoic rocks in the Cantabrian zone of northern Spain show that temperatures during Hercynian metamorphism locally exceeded 300 °C. Various temperature domains have been defined, which are generally separated by fundamental structures. These domains do not correspond with the tripartite subdivision based on stratigraphic analysis. The observed CAI values of conodonts are in general agreement with the mineral paragenesis. Areas with high CAI values display extensive alteration and mineralization, and where CAI values exceed 4-4.5 (>200 °C) slaty cleavage has developed.The Cantabrian zone is an area of very low grade metamorphism, where peak conditions were reached in Upper Carboniferous to Lower Permian times. The characteristics of the metamorphism and its spatial relationship with major faults suggest that fluids were the main source for regional heating and that fluid transport was focussed along crustal-scale structural features.The overall deformation regime in this part of the Variscan orogen of western Europe is interpreted to be large-scale transtension. This is in agreement with earlier proposed models for the formation of Upper Palaeozoic basins in this area.

The family Cardiliidae has been scarcely studied. It was historically placed in the superfamily Mactroidea. Members of this family are characterized by a cordiform shell with a typical mactrid hinge, posterior adductor muscle placed into a myophore and three ornamental areas on the external surface of the shell. Six extant and 14 exclusively fossil species have been previously mentioned in the literature as belonging to the genusCardilia. The geographical distribution, stratigraphic range, type material and type locality of each extant and fossil species are provided. In this work, four extant species and 11 exclusively fossil species belonging to the genusCardiliaare recognized. Extant species are from the western Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and eastern Atlantic Ocean, while fossil taxa are recorded from deposits of middle Eocene to late Pliocene in Europe and Asia,. One of them is formally described herein asCardilia edwardsinew species.

The Santa Lucía Formation represents the major phase in Devonian reef development of the Cantabrian Zone (Cantabrian Mountains, northwest Spain). In the present study the transition from the carbonate platform deposits of the Santa Lucía Formation to the overlying euxinic basinal deposits of the Huergas Formation is described. These transitional strata are connected to the Basal Choteč Event and represent a condensed sedimentation of micritic dark-grey and black limestones with an upward increase of dark shale intercalations with iron mineralisation surfaces and storm-induced brachiopod coquinas. The transitional beds are grouped into a new unit, the Cabornera Bed, which consists of limestone, limestone-shale and shale facies associations, representing a sediment-starved euxinic offshore area just below the storm wave base. Four stages in reef decline can be recognised: a reef stage, an oxygen-depleted, nutrient-rich stage, a siliciclastic-influx stage and a pelagic-siliciclastic stage. Additional geochemical and geophysical investigations are needed to verify the results presented herein.

No abstract

Relative sea level fluctuations during the Frasnian generated two shallow-marine, mixed siliciclastic-carbonate successions in the Devonian Asturo-Leonese Basin. Each system represents a third-order sequence-stratigraphical unit deposited in the same basin during comparable extreme greenhouse conditions without nearby fluvial entry points. Depositional control on the siliciclastic and carbonate distribution was driven by relative sea level fluctuations, basin geometry, availability of sand and the way sediment was distributed by shelf currents. Early Variscan flexural bending of the continental crust changed the basin shape from a shelf with a gradual profile and low dip (early Frasnian) towards a shelf with a steep depositional dip (late Frasnian). Shelf distribution changed from along-shelf transport (early Frasnian) towards offshore-directed gravity flows (late Frasnian). As a consequence, siliciclastic-carbonate distribution changed from a predominance of skeletal carbonate in the proximal shoreface – foreshore area and siliciclastic predominance distally (early Frasnian), to a distribution pattern with proximal shoreface skeletal carbonates, offshore muddy carbonates and a siliciclastic zone in between where gravity flows distributed the siliciclastic sediment down dip (late Frasnian).