Research Project under way

    I am actually the Research Leader of a project about the Betics. It is entitled
"Lateral variations in the structure and in the kinematics of the northern branch of the Gibraltar Arc: implications for the evolution of an arcuate orogen." (summary of the project) and is supported by the "Dirección general de Investigación" of the spanish Science and technology Ministery. This project, which is valid until December 2003, includes four research workers and one scholarship holder.

    It is necessary to frame the Betic-Rif orogen within the plate tectonic setting as it represents the westernmost segment of the peri-Mediterranean mountain belts. The knowledge about these mountain chains have been revised owing to a bilateral italo-spanish cooperation from which I am the Research Leader of the spanish part. It is entitled "Extensional processes during plate tectonics convergence: the case of the western Mediterranean illustrated by the tectonic comparison of the Calabria and Gibraltar Arcs" and it is realized with geologists of Roma TRE university (summary of the bilateral cooperation project).

  Summary of the Project under way

    The study of tightly arcuate orogenic arcs associated with continental subduction (western Alps, Gibraltar) evidenced that the development of these arcuate structures generally involved complex kinematic patterns. In recent years, the study and modelization of different natural cases reveal that orogenic arcs can develop through very different displacement paths, eventually involving vertical-axis rotations, extension of the orogenic wedge and development of associated strike-slip fault systems.

    In the western part of the Gibraltar Arc, the results obtained in the previous Project permit to complete, with considerable precision, the shortening directions within the Gibraltar Arc accretionary prism and to value the role of extensional processes. Based on these previous results, this research project aims to compare two transverse sections situated along two segments (western and central) of the northern branch of the Gibraltar Arc, the structural trends of which differ approximately 60º. The comparison to be established will account for the kinematic patterns of each transverse, the paleogeographic type and significance of the units present in each transverse, and the space-time sequence of the deformation style. Finally, a common evolutive model will be elaborated.

  Summary of the bilateral cooperation project

    The western Mediterranean is a privileged site for the study of the contractional and extensional processes in orogenic belts during plate convergence tectonics. In particular, part of the alpine chain s.l. which extend from the Betic up to the Appennine and whichincludes the Rif, Kabylia, Tell and the Calabria Arc is constitued by a series of orogenic segments formed during the african and european plate convergence since the upper Cretaceous. These mountains side marine basins of Neogene age, some of them floored by oceanic crust.

    The aim of this project is to compare the Arcs of Gibraltar and Calabria, as both area are similar concerning the outcropping lithologies and the character and distribution of their tectonic units. Moreover, the penetrative and large-scale deformational structures and/or the contractional and extensional events which affected both Arcs occurred during the same time interval and in a relatively restricted region.