Plio-Quaternary tectonic evolution of the southern margin of the Alboran Basin (Western Mediterranean) Manfred Lafosse1,2, Elia d’Acremont1, Alain Rabaute1, Ferran Estrada3, Martin Jollivet-Castelot4, Juan 5 Tomas Vazquez 5, Jesus Galindo-Zaldivar 6,7, Gemma Ercilla3, Belen Alonso3, Jeroen Smit2, Abdellah Ammar8, Christian Gorini 1 1 Sorbonne Université, CNRS-INSU, Institut des Sciences de la Terre Paris, ISTeP UMR 7193, F-75005 Paris, France 2 Tectonic and Structural Geology Groups, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, PO Box 80.021, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands 10 3 Instituto de Ciencias del Mar, ICM-CSIC, Continental Margin Group, 08003 Barcelona, Spain 4 Univ. Lille, CNRS, Univ. Littoral Côte d’Opale, UMR 8187, Labratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG), F59000, Lille, France 5 Instituto Espanol de Oceanografıa, C.O.Malaga, Fuengirola, Spain 6 Dpto. de Geodinamica, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. 15 7 Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC-UGR), Granada, Spain. 8 Université Mohammed V-Agdal, Rabat, Morocco Correspondence to: Manfred Lafosse (
[email protected]) Abstract. Progress in the understanding and dating of the sedimentary record of the Alboran Basin allows us to propose a 20 model of its tectonic evolution since the Pliocene. After a period of extension, the Alboran Basin underwent a progressive tectonic inversion since 9 – 7.5 Ma. The Alboran Ridge is a NE-SW transpressive structure accommodating the shortening in the basin. We mapped its southwestern termination, a Pliocene rhombic structure exhibiting series of folds and thrusts. The active Al-Idrissi fault zone (AIF) is a Pleistocene strike-slip structure trending NNE-SSW.