Crustal structure of the eastern Basque-Cantabrian Zone ̶ western Pyreneesfrom the Cretaceous hyperextension to the Cenozoic inversion

Abstract

We present a new crustal-scale transect of the eastern Basque-Cantabrian Zone, through the Cinco Villas Massif, the Leiza-Aralar Thrust System and the South-Pyrenean Zone. The restoration of this transect to its pre-shortening stage allows us to assess the architecture of the hyperextended domain and the style of the Alpine contractional deformation. During the Cretaceous, extension led to a hyperthinned crust with local mantle unroofing to the base of the eastern Basque-Cantabrian Basin. The mantle unroofing process was driven by a complex system of detachments putting into contact Mesozoic sediments in the hanging wall with mantle rocks in the footwall. At this stage, extensive fluid circulation caused serpentinization of the uppermost mantle body. Furthermore, the thermal anomaly created during the unroofing caused high temperature metamorphism of the overlying sediments of the Leiza detachment system and hydrothermalism in further basins. The Alpine convergence gave rise to the tectonic inversion of the Mesozoic basins. Tectonic structures inherited from the Cretaceous hyperextension played a major role in mountain building. The southward indentation of the European crust forced the northwards subduction of the Iberian crust and the basement-cover decoupling along the Triassic evaporites. Restoration of this section to the end of the extensional period enabled us to estimate a shortening of~90 km.