Climatic and tectonic significance of Late Pleistocene and Holocene tufa deposits in the Mijares River canyon, eastern Iberian Range, northeast Spain
✍ Scribed by J.L. Peña; C. Sancho; M.V. Lozano
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 743 KB
- Volume
- 25
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0360-1269
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✦ Synopsis
The tufa deposits developed in the Mijares River canyon at the eastern sector of the Iberian Range were studied by using geomorphological, stratigraphic, micromorphological, mineralogical and chronological (U/Th and 14 C) techniques. These tufas are located along a high-gradient river profile reach, with high water turbulence and mechanical outgassing, related to Quaternary faulting activity upstream in the regional context of an extensional tectonic regime. Two stepped and terraced fluviatile tufa structures with large phytohermal barrage frameworks and smaller dammed areas have been differentiated. The first structure, Upper Pleistocene in age (from 200 000 to 50 000 years BP), is made up by two morphosedimentary units reaching 120 m in thickness, and the second one, Holocene in age (10 000-5000 years BP), is 35 m in thickness. These structures record a more or less continuous tufa development with a mean deposition rate ranging between 1 and 5 mm a À1 as minimum. A preferential growth with high biological activity during warm and wet palaeoenvironmental stages (isotopic stages 7, 3 and 1) can be deduced. Thus, neotectonic activity controlled the location along the Mijares River as well as the large thickness of the tufa deposits, whereas warm climatic periods favoured intense tufa activity in the fluvial system.