Resumen de The late thermal history of the Ronda area, southern Spain
L. Sánchez Rodríguez, D. Seward
There is abundant data to show that the Betic chain has been affected by very high cooling rates during its Alpine history. In the westernmost part of the chain, this fast cooling has been constrained mainly by geochronology using various isotopic systems and by paleontological age determinations. Recently, U-Pb SHRIMP ages, (Sanchez-Rodriguez and Gebauer, 2000), yielded an age o f 20.6 ± 0.7 Ma for the Miocene high-grade metamorphism in the country rocks. Fission-track analysis was applied to both zircon and apatite in order to constrain the later stages of cooling. The fission-track results point to extremely high rates f cooling (>300°C/Ma) between 21-19 Ma while for the time period 19-12 Ma rates ranged from 200-50°C/Ma, depending on the structural position.
