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Recent models support the view that the Pyrenees were formed after the inversion of a previously highly extended continental crust that included exhumed upper mantle rocks. Mantle rocks remain near to the surface after compression and mountain building, covered by the latest Cretaceous to Paleogene sequences. 3-D lithospheric-scale gravity inversion demands the presence of a high-density mantle body placed within the crust in order to justify the observed anomalies. Exhumed mantle, having ~50 km of maximum width, continuously extends beneath the Basque-Cantabrian Basin and along the northern side of the Pyrenees. The association of this body with rift, postrift, and inversion structural geometries is tested in a balanced cross section across the Basque-Cantabrian Basin that incorporates a major south-dipping ramp-flat-ramp extensional detachment active between Valanginian and early Cenomanian times. Results indicate that horizontal extension progressed ~48 km at variable strain rates that increased from 1 to ~4 mm/yr in middle Albian times. Low-strength Triassic Keuper evaporites and mudstones above the basement favor the decoupling of the cover with formation of minibasins, expulsion rollovers, and diapirs. The inversion of the extensional system is accommodated by doubly verging basement thrusts due to the reactivation of the former basin bounding faults in Eocene-Oligocene times. Total shortening is estimated in ~34 km and produced the partial subduction of the continental lithosphere beneath the two sides of the exhumed mantle. Obtained results help to pinpoint the original architecture of the North Iberian Margin and the evolution of the hyperextended aborted intracontinental basins.

The tectonic structure of the Guadalquivir foreland basin becomes complex eastwards evolving from a single depocenter to a compartmented basin. The deformation pattern within the eastern Guadalquivir foreland basin has been characterized by combining seismic reflection profiles, boreholes and structural field data to output a 3D model. High-dipping NNE-SSW to NE-SW trending normal and reverse fault arrays deform the Variscan basement of the basin. These faults generally affect Tortonian sediments, which show syntectonic features sealed by the latest Miocene units. Curved and S-shaped fault-traces are abundant and caused by the linkage of nearby fault segments during lateral fault propagation. Preexisting faults were reactivated either as normal or reverse faults depending on their position within the foreland. At Tortonian time, reverse faults deformed the basin forebulge, while normal faults predominated within the backbulge. Along-strike variation of the Betic foreland basin geometry is supported by an increasing mechanical coupling of the two plates (Alboran Domain and Variscan basement) towards the eastern part of the cordillera. Thus, subduction would have progressed in the western Betics, while it would have failed in the eastern one. There, the initially subducted Iberian paleomargin (Nevado-Filabride Complex) was incorporated into the upper plate promoting the transmission of collision-related compressional stresses into the foreland since the middle Miocene. Nowadays, compression is still active and produces low-magnitude earthquakes likely linked to NNE-SSW to NE-SW pre-exiting faults reactivated with reverse oblique-slip kinematics. Seismicity is mostly concentrated around fault tips that are frequently curved in overstepping zones.

[1] We examine the late Tortonian to present-day deformation of an active seismic sector of the eastern Iberian foreland basement of the Betic Cordillera, in southern Spain. Transpressive faults affecting Paleozoic basement offset up to Triassic rocks. Late Triassic clays and evaporites constitute a decollement level decoupling the basement rocks and a ~100 m thick cover of Jurassic carbonates. Monoclines trending NE-SW to ENE-WSW deform the Jurassic cover driven by the propagation of high-angle transpressive right-lateral basement faults. They favor the migration of clays and evaporites toward the propagated fault tip, i.e., the core of the anticline, resulting in fluid overpressure, fluid flow, and precipitation of fibrous gypsum parallel to a vertical σ3. The overall geometry of the studied monoclines, as well as the intense deformation within the clays and evaporites, reproduces three-layer discrete element models entailing a weak middle unit sandwiched between strong layers. Late Tortonian syn-folding sediments recorded the initial stages of the fault-propagation folding. Equivalent unexposed transpressive structures and associated monoclines reactivated under the present-day NW-SE convergence are recognized and analyzed in the Sabiote-Torreperogil region, using seismic reflection, gravity, and borehole data. A seismic series of more than 2100 low-magnitude earthquakes was recorded within a very limited area of the basement of this sector from October 2012 to May 2013. Seismic activity within a major NE-SW trending transpressive basement fault plane stimulated rupture along a subsidiary E-W (~N95°E) strike-slip relay fault. The biggest event (mbLg 3.9, MW 3.7) occurred at the junction between them in a transpressive relay sector.

[1] The nucleation, propagation, and associated folding of ramp-flat-ramp normal faults were analyzed from field examples developed in a brittle/ductile multilayer sequence of the Huercal-Overa Basin (SE Spain). Gently dipping sandy silt layers, which display a low cohesive strength (C0 = 7 kPa, μ= 34°), favor the development of extensional detachments. A tectonic origin instead of a possible gravitational origin is supported by the perpendicularity between the paleoslope direction of the fluvial-deltaic environment inferred from imbricated pebbles, and the senses of movement deduced from fault slicken-lines. The link between high-angle normal faults (HANFs) —formed at different levels in the layered sequence— with horizontal fault segments comes to develop ramp-flat-ramp normal faults with associated roll-over in the hanging wall. Observed extensional duplexes are formed by parallel detachments connected through synthetic Riedel faults. These Riedel faults would produce the back-rotation of the individual blocks (horses), i.e., extensional folding of the originally subhorizontal layers. There is no correlation between the analyzed ramp-flat-ramp normal faults, accommodating south-southeastward extension during Serravallian-lower Tortonian, and either the regional Alpujarride/Nevado-Filabride west-directed extensional shear zone or the top-to-the-north detachments within Alpujarride units, which are clearly sealed by Serravallian-lower Tortonian sediments. Therefore, the studied normal faults are restricted to the brittle/ductile multilayer fluvio/deltaic sequence and accommodate moderate late extension instead of belonging to a large crustal extensional system connected with a regional detachment at depth. Therefore, the basin formed in a moderate crustal thickness context where small and medium-scale extensional systems were subordinate structures. These natural examples support the development of low-angle normal faults at very shallow crustal levels in multilayer sequences with suitable rheological conditions.

The Atlas Mountains are characterized by high elevations and Quaternary volcanism. Long period magnetotelluric data acquired along a NNW-SSE transect reveal the presence of a conductive anomalous mantle below the High Atlas. Data dimensionality analyses show a preferent N80 degrees E strike of the deep resistivity structure in agreement with the induction vector alignment at long periods. Accordingly, a 2D inversion of the data set was carried out. Large resistive bodies at the crustal basement most likely correspond to batholiths emplaced in more conductive metapelites. They are covered by outcropping conductive sedimentary detritic and carbonate rocks. Lithospheric thinning producing anomalous mantle and basin development in the Atlas probably started during Triassic-Jurassic rifting. Inversion tectonics since the Oligocene produced low shortening on previous lithospheric weak zones, with thrusting of the Atlas above the stable African plate. Melting at the top of the anomalous mantle is connected with Quaternary basaltic volcanism in the Middle Atlas.