Home > Articles > Stress evolution and structural inheritance controlling an intracontinental extensional basin: The central-northern sector of the Neogene Teruel Basin
Resumen: The Teruel Basin is a NNE-SSW trending intracontinental extensional basin located in central-eastern Iberia. It is asymmetrically bounded to the east by a major fault zone, but intrabasinal faults with diverse orientation (NNE-SSW to NE-SW, E-W, or NW-SE) also appear. Offsets of the successive sedimentary units and of two planation surfaces reveal that tectonic activity initiated at the border faults, while intrabasinal ones mainly developed in a later stage. Fractures on a map scale show a prevailing N-S strike in Neogene synrift rocks, while a dense network made of four main fracture sets (NE-SW, E-W to ESE-WNW, N-S and NNW-SSE), likely inherited from Mesozoic rifting stages, is observed in pre-rift units. The results of palaeostress analyses indicate an overall predominance of s3 directions around E-W, although two stress episodes have been distinguished during the Late Miocene-Pleistocene: (i) triaxial extension with s3 E-W; (ii) almost ‘radial’ extension (s1 vertical, s2 ˜ s3) with a somehow prevailing s3 ENE-WSW. A scenario in which the evolving extensional stress field was able to gradually activate major basement structures with different orientation, inherited from previous tectonic events, is proposed as responsible for the evolution and overall pattern of both the eastern active margin and central parts of the central-northern sector of the Teruel Basin. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1016/j.jsg.2018.11.011 Año: 2019 Publicado en: Journal of Structural Geology 118 (2019), 362-376 ISSN: 0191-8141 Factor impacto JCR: 2.836 (2019) Categ. JCR: GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY rank: 65 / 198 = 0.328 (2019) - Q2 - T1 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 1.431 - Geology (Q1)