The sediment flux to a basin is controlled by a complex combination of tectonics, climatic variability and stochastic events, thereby creating a cryptic geological record. Deconvolving the effects of individual factors controlling sedimentation can often be challenging, due to a variety of reasons including a lack of outcrop, a poor understanding of the regional tectonic framework and insufficiently detailed geological maps. However, many of these deficiencies can be overcome within the deep-marine Ainsa basin, South Central Pyrenees where detailed research over the last decade has provided an extensive knowledge base. The Ainsa basin comprises ~4 km of middle Eocene deep-marine sediments. Basin stratigraphy consists of a succession of ~25 discrete sandy submarine fans and inter-fan deposits belonging to the Hecho Group. Recently it has been hypothesised that the supply of coarse-clastic sediment to the basin was paced by orbitally induced climate and/or sea level variability, whilst tectonics controlled the locus of deposition. This hypothesis is tested within the Upper Hecho Group using a refined basin age model and the creation of floating orbital time scales between submarine fans. Using calcareous nannofossil and large shallow benthic foraminifera, deposition of the Upper Hecho Group took place over a 6.0-8.3 Myr period between ~40.5-48.4 Ma, giving an average sediment accumulation rate (SAR) of 43.2±10.5 cm/kyr. Stratigraphic time series analyses of inter-fan fine-grained sediments indicate the presence of short eccentricity, obliquity and precession Milankovitch cycles. These floating time scales provide average SARs of 36, 28 and 25-33 cm/kyr for the Banaston, Ainsa and Guaso systems respectively. Applying these age models to the three systems suggest that submarine fan deposition potentially corresponds to specific eccentricity minima. As in the Pleistocene, such Milankovitch forcing could be linked with ephemeral glacio-eustatic low-stand conditions, associated with increased coarse sediment flux to the deep-marine Ainsa basin.

The ~300-m-thick deep marine Guaso system is the youngest deposit of the deep marine fill of the Mid Eocene Ainsa basin, Spanish Pyrenees. It is overlain by ~150-200 m of fine-grained slope and deltaic sediments. Unlike the older turbidite systems in the Ainsa basin (canyon and channelised systems) the Guaso sandbodies are laterally extensive, built by laterally-switching 3-10-m-deep erosional channels, and confined only by basin structure during deposition. The oldest system, Guaso I, displays cyclic sedimentation packages and up slope thinning suggesting a sediment source greatly influenced by fourth order controls and not directly linked to the feeder system. Total Organic Carbon values in the fine grained sediment above Guaso I records suspected climatic controls in the order of 41kyr. The youngest system, Guaso II, is generally coarser with no cyclic sedimentation packages, suggesting a sediment source connected to the feeder system and not as effected by subtle climatic changes. The Guaso II system spans deep marine to slope environments. The first-order control on basin-scale accommodation was tectonicallydriven subsidence with eustasy the most likely driving factor for sand deposition (probably the ~400 kyr Milankovitch beat). The overlying Sobrarbe Deltaic Complex is characterised by alternating thin, sheet like sandstones and heavily bioturbated sandstone on a marlstone prone slope up to the delta front sandstones. The critical end-signature of deep-marine Guaso deposition was a phase of net tectonic uplift creating a narrower and shallower basin morphology, allowing the feeder delta to prograde to at or near the shelf edge. At the next eustatic sealevel fall sediment input patterns were not favourable to the cutting of canyons or deeply-incised slope channels, creating an unconfined turbidite system. Such clastic slopes often characterise the end-signature for the infill of other shallowing-up deep-marine basins where sediment supply is high and shelf edge deltas are present.

Pursuing an innovative, global approach, this unique book provides an updated review of the geology of Iberia and its continental margins from a geodynamic perspective. Owing to its location close to successive plate margins, Iberia has played a pivotal role in the geodynamic evolution of the Gondwanan, Rheic, Pangea, Tethys and Eurasian plates over the last 600 Ma of Earth’s history. The geological record starts with the amalgamation of Gondwana in the Neoproterozoic, which was succeeded by the rifting and spreading of the Rheic ocean; its demise, which led to the amalgamation of Pangea in the late Paleozoic; the rifting and spreading of several arms of the Neotethys ocean in the Mesozoic Era and their ongoing closure, which was responsible for the Alpine orogeny. The significant advances in the last 20 years have increasingly attracted international interest in exploring the geology of the Iberian Peninsula. This volume focuses on the Cenozoic basins of the Iberian Geology and consequently the most recent sedimentary features in the Iberian Geology apart of the active ones. In this book, you will find a detailed explanation of the alpine foreland basins, the extension of the west Mediterranean as well as the latest magmatism in Iberia.

This wide area of the Alpine-Himalayan belt evolved through a series of tectonic events related to the opening and closure of the Tethys Ocean. In doing so it produced the largest mountain belt of the world, which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. The basins associated with this belt contain invaluable information related to mountain building processes and are the locus of rich hydrocarbon accumulations. However, knowledge about the geological evolution of the region is limited compared to what they offer.