Crustal transition between continental and oceanic domains along the North Iberian Margin from wide angle seismic and gravity data

Fernéndez-Viejo, G.; Muset, Josep Gallart; Pulgar, J. A.; Gallastegui, J.; Dañobeitia, Juan José; Córdoba, Diego

doi:10.1029/1998gl900149

Cited by 70 publications

(118 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…1) can be interpreted as a true accretionary prism under which the Bay of Biscay oceanic crust has subducted (Boillot et al, 1979;Déregnaucourt and Boillot, 1982;Boillot and Malod, 1988;Alvarez-Marrón et al, 1997;Ayarza et al, 2004), whereas others do not favor such a southward subduction and postulate for a continuous Moho discontinuity between the margin and the abyssal plain, at least in the longitude of the ESCIN-4 marine profile ( Fig. 1) (Fernández Viejo et al, 1998;Gallastegui et al, 2002;Pedreira et al, 2015). Oceanic crust of the Bay of Biscay, as an appendix of the Atlantic Ocean, is clearly identified by the magnetic anomaly content west of longitude 6°W (Sibuet et al, 2004).…”

Section: Results For the Bay Of Biscaymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1) place the Iberian Moho at depths over 50 km in the crustal root Fernández-Viejo et al, 1998), although the model resulting from the former dataset does not show incident rays below 38 km and the latter lacks reversed shots. The models show the Cantabrian-Biscay Moho at ~30 km under the coastline, shallowing to 16-18 km towards the Bay of Biscay (Fig.…”

Section: Results Of the Escin Profiles Across The Cantabrian Mountainmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Descriptions and references of the upper crustal structure can be found in Alonso et al (1996), Gallastegui (2000) and Cadenas and Fernández-Viejo (2016). Previous crustal models have been proposed by Pulgar et al (1996), Fernández-Viejo et al (1998, 2000 Gallastegui (2000) and Pedreira et al (2003Pedreira et al ( , 2015, and are synthesized in Fig. 3D.…”

Section: Sections Across the Cantabrian Mountains And Bay Of Biscaymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Crustal structure and evolution of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt: A review and new interpretations from recent concepts and data

et al. 2018

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International audienceThis paper provides a synthesis of current data and interpretations on the crustal structure of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian orogenic belt, and presents new tectonic models for representative transects. The Pyrenean orogeny lasted from Santonian (~84 Ma) to early Miocene times (~20 Ma), and consisted of a spatial and temporal succession of oceanic crust/exhumed mantle subduction, rift inversion and continental collision processes at the Iberia-Eurasia plate boundary. A good coverage by active-source (vertical-incidence and wide-angle reflection) and passive-source (receiver functions) seismic studies, coupled with surface data have led to a reasonable knowledge of the present-day crustal architecture of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt, although questions remain. Seismic imaging reveals a persistent structure, from the central Pyrenees to the central Cantabrian Mountains, consisting of a wedge of Eurasian lithosphere indented into the thicker Iberian plate, whose lower crust is detached and plunges northwards into the mantle. For the Pyrenees, a new scheme of relationships between the southern upper crustal thrust sheets and the Axial Zone is here proposed. For the Cantabrian belt, the depth reached by the N-dipping Iberian crust and the structure of the margin are also revised.The common occurrence of lherzolite bodies in the northern Pyrenees and the seismic velocity and potential field record of the Bay of Biscay indicate that the precursor of the Pyrenees was a hyperextended and strongly segmented rift system, where narrow domains of exhumed mantle separated the thinned Iberian and Eurasian continental margins since the Albian-Cenomanian. The exhumed mantle in the Pyrenean rift was largely covered by a Mesozoic sedimentary lid that had locally glided along detachments in Triassic evaporites. Continental margin collision in the Pyrenees was preceded by subduction of the exhumed mantle, accompanied by the pop-up thrust expulsion of the off-scraped sedimentary lid above. To the west, oceanic subduction of the Bay of Biscay under the North Iberian margin is supported by an upper plate thrust wedge, gravity and magnetic anomalies, and 3D inclined sub-crustal reflections. However, discrepancies remain for the location of continent-ocean transitions in the Bay of Biscay and for the extent of oceanic subduction. The plate-kinematic evolution during the Mesozoic, which involves issues as the timing and total amount of opening, as well as the role of strike-slip drift, is also under debate, discrepancies arising from first-order interpretations of the adjacent oceanic magnetic anomaly record

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Section: Results For the Bay Of Biscaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Results Of the Escin Profiles Across The Cantabrian Mountainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sections Across the Cantabrian Mountains And Bay Of Biscaymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Crustal structure and evolution of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt: A review and new interpretations from recent concepts and data

et al. 2018

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“…Beneath its axial zone, the Moho deepens to 45-50 km (Daignieres et al, 1998;Choukroune and ECORS Team, 1989), while to the east, toward the Mediterranean coast, the Moho rises to ~24 km. The thickened crust extends to the west beneath the Cantabrian Mountains, where the Moho attains a depth of 46-48 km (Pulgar et al, 1996;Fernández-Viejo et al, 1998Díaz et al, 2003). Seismic data for the other major Alpine chains, i.e., the Betics, reveal a crust of ~32 km at the margins, increasing further toward the central zone to ~36-38 km.…”

Section: Crustal Thicknessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crustal structure from gravity signatures in the Iberian Peninsula

Gómez-Ortíz

Agarwal

Tejero

et al. 2011

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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Through two-dimensional fi ltering and spectral analysis of gravity data, we infer the density structure of the Iberia Peninsula's lithosphere (western Europe). The gravity anomaly map of the Iberian Peninsula displays long-wavelength anomaly minima related to Alpine ranges. These anomalies are primarily linked to a greater crustal thickness. Low-pass fi ltering of the anomaly map using a cutoff wavelength of 150 km was adequate for effective separation of shallow and deep sources used for computing the three-dimensional (3-D) Moho interface.

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“…Ambiguous evidence of Iberia subduction exists in the area. In fact, while both gravimetric data (Alvarez-Marrón et al, 1997) and seismic velocity modelling S. Tavani: Plate kinematics in the Cantabrian domain 269 (Fernández-Viejo et al, 1998) Fig. 2) shows a repetition of the lower crust-mantle boundary (Ayarza et al, 1998) matching a north-directed subduction of Iberia.…”

Section: The Crustal-scale Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

Plate kinematics in the Cantabrian domain of the Pyrenean orogen

Tavani

2012

Solid Earth

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The Cantabrian domain represents the western portion of the Pyrenean orogen, in the area where the Iberian continental lithosphere was subducted toward the north underneath the transitional to oceanic lithosphere of the Bay of Biscay. There, the about 100 km of orogenic convergence have been mostly accommodated in the northern portion of the orogen (i.e. the retro wedge) developed in the Bay of Biscay abyssal plain, while only crustal-scale folding with limited internal deformation occurred in the Cantabrian southern wedge (pro-wedge). Integrated meso- and macrostructural analyses and a reappraisal of available information from the transitional area between the Pyrenean and Cantabrian domains are presented in this work, allowing to set geometric and kinematic constraints on the entire Meso-Cenozoic history of the northern portion of the Iberian Plate, including subduction initiation and evolution in the western portion of the Pyrenean orogen. <br><br> The structural record of the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous deformation stage, which was associated with rifting and seafloor spreading in the Bay of Biscay, indicates a ridge perpendicular (NNE-SSW oriented) extension, with no evidence of relevant strike-slip components during rifting. A Cenozoic NNW-SSE oriented shortening stage followed, related to the limited (about 100 km) north-directed subduction of the Iberian continental lithosphere underneath the transitional to oceanic lithosphere of the Bay of Biscay. Subduction led to the formation of the poorly-developed Cantabrian pro-wedge, which is laterally juxtaposed to the well-developed Pyrenean pro-wedge to the east. During this convergence stage, the structural framework in the Cantabrian pro-wedge, and particularly along its transition with the Pyrenean wedge to the east, was severely complicated by the reactivation of Paleozoic and Mesozoic inherited structures. <br><br> Data presented in this work fully support the development of the Cantabrian Mountains as related to indentation and consequent thickening of the Bay of Biscay transitional lower crust during north-directed subduction of Iberian continental lithosphere. In essence, the Cantabrian pro-wedge is a lithospheric south-verging fault-propagation anticline developing above the subduction plane. The structural record in the area indicates that a lithospheric fault-propagation folding stage was predated, during the very early stages of orogenic shortening, by the development of a lithospheric-scale open syncline overlying the nucleation point of lithosphere sinking. Such a syncline is today partially preserved and represents one of the few natural examples of subduction initiation

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Crustal transition between continental and oceanic domains along the North Iberian Margin from wide angle seismic and gravity data

Cited by 70 publications

References 17 publications

Crustal structure and evolution of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt: A review and new interpretations from recent concepts and data

Crustal structure and evolution of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian belt: A review and new interpretations from recent concepts and data

Crustal structure from gravity signatures in the Iberian Peninsula

Plate kinematics in the Cantabrian domain of the Pyrenean orogen

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