Resumen de Deformación y generación de relieve intraplaca en las cadenas Atlásicas de Marruecos
Antonio Teixell Cacharo, María Luisa Arboleya, Manuel Julivert Casagualda
The Atlas mountain chains of NW Africa illustrate some of the principal mechanisms of deformation and uplift operating in intraplate regions. Deformation is characterized by reactivation of preexisting upper crustal discontinuities (rift inversion; High and Middle Atlas) and bylithosphere-scale folding of more intact parts of the plate interior (Anti-Atlas). Upper-crustal faultreactivation in previous rift zones results in dominant thick-skinned geometries, expressed in basement-involved thrusting and buckling. The high elevation of the Atlas chains contrasts with amodest amount of shortening and crustal thickening. This fact, together with other geological andgeophysical indicators, suggests a contribution to uplift by a thermally anomalous mantle. Therelief of the Atlas mountains can be seen as a combination of crustal isostatic and dynamic (or mantle isostatic) topography.
