Resumen de Neogene Lacustrine Systems of the Southern Teruel Graben (Spain)
M.P. Anadón , Federico Ortí Cabo, Laura Rosell Ortiz
The Teruel graben, up to 15 km wide, extends more than 100 km and cuts across the central part of the northwest-southeast compressional Alpine Iberian Chain (Figure 1). A detachment level within this chain is formed by thick Upper Triassic evaporitic andlutitic formations that separate two different structurallevels:the Hercynian basement (with a Permian-Lower Triassic thin covering) and a thickJurassic-Paleogene carbonate-dominated cover. The Teruel graben displays en echelon north-northeast south-southwest oriented faults and a half-grabenstructure with hanging-wall subsidence westward of each fault and footwall uplift eastward of each fault(Moissenet, 1980; Anadon and Moissenet, 1990). This graben is the result of the gravitational collapse of apart of the Iberian Chain that experienced the large stcrustal thickening during the Paleocene and early Miocene compression (Cuimera, 1997). Rifting that created the Teruel graben must be considered within the framework of the Western European Rift System and the late Oligocene-Neogene extensional deformationthat created the Catalan-Balearic Basin (Anad6net al., 1989; Anad6n and Roca, 1996; Cuimera, 1996;Roca,1996).The Neogene basin-fill sequence in the Teruelgraben is up to 500 rn thick and consists of a complex arrangement of alluvial siliciclastic facies and lacustrine carbonates and evaporites (Hernandez et a1.,1985). Age of the basin-fill sequence ranges from early Aragonian (early Miocene) to Pliocene (Adrover et al.,1978). Dating of the diverse units has been based exclusively on abundant mammal fossil sites (Gautieret al., 1972; Adrover et al., 1978; Besems and van derWeerd, 1983; Mein et al., 1983; Adrover, 1986; Alcala,1994, and references within).
