New data on Lower Carboniferous stratigraphy and palaeogeography of the Malaguide complex (Betic Cordillera, Southern Spain)

The Malaguide basement is formed by a thick, strongly deformed but weakly metamorphosed sedimentary succession of ?Ordovician-Carboniferous age, mainly made of basinal mudstones and turbidites, which includes a thin but conspicuous Lower Carboniferous chert-limestone interval (Falcona formation). The chert member (ribbon radiolarites) yielded, for the first time in Southern Spain, Tournaisian radiolarians. The Visean age of the limestone member is refined by conodonts. This formation is related to a period of generalized pelagic sedimentation, caused by relatively high sea level, low elastic input and high equatorial productivity, which preceded the closure of the Palaeotethys basins due to the Variscan orogeny. (C) 2000 Academie des sciences / Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.