Effects of mantle upwelling in a compressional setting: the Atlas Mountains of Morocco |
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| Authors: | Antonio Teixell Puy Ayarza Hermann Zeyen Manel Fernàndez María-Luisa Arboleya |
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| Institution: | Departament de Geologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain;;Departamento de Geología, Universidad de Salamanca, 37008 Salamanca, Spain;;Département des Sciences de la Terre, UMR 8148 IDES, Universitéde Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France;;Group of Dynamics of the Lithosphere, Department of Geophysics and Tectonics, Institute of Earth Sciences 'J. Almera'–CSIC, 08028 Barcelona, Spain |
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| Abstract: | We discuss the implications of a lithospheric model of the Moroccan Atlas Mountains based on topography, heat flow, gravity and geoid anomalies, taking into account the regional geology. The NW African cratonic lithosphere, some 160–180 km thick, thins to c. 80 km beneath the Atlas fold-thrust belts, in contrast with the shortening regime prevailing there since the early Cenozoic. This fact explains several geological and geophysical features as high topography with modest tectonic shortening, the occurrence of alkaline magmatism contemporaneous to compression, the absence of large crustal roots to support elevation, the scarce development of foreland basins, and a marked geoid high. The modelled lithosphere thinning is related to a thermal upwelling constrained between the Iberia–Africa convergent plate boundary and the Saharan craton. |
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