Mesozoic tectonic evolution of the southwest continental Iberian Margin

An extensional event affected the southwest Margin of Iberia during Late Triassic to Early Cretaceous times, giving place to the Algarve basin. This basin was subjected to tectonic instability and it became infilled with siliciclastic and carbonate sequences with abundant interspersed volcanic rocks. Normal and strike-slip faults accommodated the deformation in the Algarve basin. The presence of a single flat or listric detachment surface is inferred from the study of hanging-wall structures. The dynamic and kinematic analyses of fault systems in the Spanish exposure of the Algarve basin allow us to establish three extensional phases. 1) A Late Triassic to Hettangian NE-SW directed extension associated with the initial breaking of Pangea and the opening of the Tethys in the eastern Mediterranean. 2) NW-SE extension from the Sinemurian to the Callovian, interpreted as a result of the activity as a sinistral fault of the Azores-Gibraltar transform boundary. 3) Finally, E-W extension during the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous, related to the North Atlantic rifting process. (c) 2005 Lavoisier SAS. All rights reserved.