摘要

The Asturian Arc was produced in the Early Permian by a large E-W dextral strike-slip fault (North Iberian Megashear) which affected the Cantabrian and Palentian zones of the northeastern Iberian Massif. These two zones had previously been juxtaposed by an earlier Kasimovian NW-SE sinistral strike-slip fault (Covadonga Fault). The occurrence of multiple successive vertical fault sets in this area favoured its rotation around a vertical axis (mille-feuille effect). Along with other parallel faults, the Covadonga Fault became the western margin of a proto-Tethys marine basin, which was filled with turbidities and shallow coal-basin successions of Kasimovian and Gzhelian ages. The Covadonga Fault also displaced the West Asturian Leonese Zone to the northwest, dragging along part of the Cantabrian Zone (the Picos de Europa Unit) and emplacing a largely pelitic succession (Palentian Zone) in what would become the Asturian Arc core. The Picos de Europa Unit was later thrust over the Palentian Zone during clockwise rotation. In late Gzhelian time, two large E-W dextral strike-slip faults developed along the North Iberian Margin (North Iberian Megashear) and south of the Pyrenean Axial Zone (South Pyrenean Fault). The block south of the North Iberian Megashear and the South Pyrenean Fault was bent into a concave, E-facing shape prior to the Late Permian until both arms of the formerly NW-SE-trending Palaeozoic orogen became oriented E-W (in present-day coordinates). Arc rotation caused detachment in the upper crust of the Cantabrian Zone, and the basement Covadonga Fault was later resurrected along the original fault line as a clonic fault (the Ventaniella Fault) after the Arc was completed. Various oblique extensional NW-SE lineaments opened along the North Iberian Megashear due to dextral fault activity, during which numerous granitic bodies intruded and were later bent during arc formation. Palaeomagnetic data indicate that remagnetization episodes might be associated with thermal fluid circulation during faulting. Finally, it is concluded that the two types of late Palaeozoic-Early Permian orogenic evolution existed in the northeastern tip of the Iberian Massif: the first was a shear-and-thrust-dominated tectonic episode from the Late Devonian to the late Moscovian (Variscan Orogeny); it was followed by a fault-dominated, rotational tectonic episode from the early Kasimovian to the Middle Permian (Alleghenian Orogeny). The Alleghenian deformation was active throughout a broad E-W-directed shear zone between the North Iberian Megashear and the South Pyrenean Fault, which created the basement of the Pyrenean and Alpine belts. The southern European area may then be considered as having been built by dispersal of blocks previously separated by NW-SE sinistral megashears and faults of early Stephanian (Kasimovian) age, later cut by E-W Early Permian megashears, faults, and associated pull-apart basins.

  • 出版日期2013