Salt tectonics vs. inversion tectonics: The anticlines of the western Maestrazgo revisited (eastern Iberian Chain, Spain)

Many works in the last decades underline the role of evaporites, not just as a conditioning factor but as the engine for subsidence and eventually basin inversion. The western Mediterranean alpine ranges are being investigated in this regard because of the presence of discontinuous units of Permian to Triassic evaporites, deposited in the western Tethys basins. This work presents a thorough analysis of two particular structures (Canada Vellida and Miravete anticlines) in the intraplate Maestrazgo basin (eastern Iberian Chain, Spain) in which evidence to support their reinterpretation as salt-driven structures have been recently reported. Our analysis includes (i) a comprehensive stratigraphic and structural study of the folds along their entire trace, (ii) the compilation of thickness and distribution of evaporite-bearing and supraevaporite units, paying special attention to changes in the thickness of units in relation to anticlines, and (iii) the study of fault patterns, sometimes in relation to the mechanical stratigraphy. All three aspects are also documented and discussed on a regional scale. The new data and interpretations reported here reinforce the extensional origin of the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous basins, and the role of regional extensional tectonics as the responsible for the development of first-order syn-sedimentary normal fault zones driving the formation and evolution of sub-basins. These basins were subsequently inverted and deformed, including the formation of complex, box-geometry anticlines that, in their turn, controlled deposition in Cenozoic basins. The review of the arguments that support the alternative of salt tectonics for the origin of such anticlines has allowed us to delve into the sedimentary and tectonic evolution of the inverted extensional basins and to propose a specific model for the development of these faulted anticlines. The role of salt levels and other interlayered detachments in the structuring of sedimentary basins and their inversion is also pondered. The observations in the eastern Iberian Chain reported here have implications to assess ongoing reinterpretations in terms of salt tectonics in other alpine basins and ranges of the western Mediterranean.