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Western Mediterranean |
1 Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Physics, University Complutense of Madrid, Madrid 28040, Spain
2 Department of Geodynamics, Faculty of Geology, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain
3 Paleomagnetic laboratoires, ‘Fort Hoofdijk’, Institute of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
4 Department of Paleontology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Zaragoza, Spain
A palaeomagnetic investigation has been carried out in the Iberian Range (Spain). Seven localities have been sampled. Two stable magnetization components have been found in all investigated sections. A high-temperature primary component of Oxfordian age shows alternatively normal and reversed polarities. A consistent low-temperature component appears in all the studied sites; it has normal polarity and passes the fold test indicating its pre-Oligocene-Miocene age. Six localities show counterclockwise declinations for both components, the high-temperature component having a Jurassic direction and the low-temperature component an early Cretaceous direction. Only the southernmost section shows a clockwise rotation for both components. This indicates that the whole Iberian Range can not be considered as a part of Stable Iberia. The angular difference (c. 15°) between both components is the same in all investigated sites. This implies that: (1) based on the palaeomagnetic direction of both components, the low-temperature remagnetization was probably acquired in the Cretaceous during the rotation of the Iberian Plate; (2) the clockwise rotation observed in the southernmost section took place after the acquisition of the remagnetization.
