Geotectonic cross sections through the Cantabrian Mountains, Northern Spain

Abstract

The Variscan Orogen in this central part of northern Spain is made up of a practically unmetamorphosed sedimentary succession detached from the underlying crust. The kinematics of the suprastructural elements had an essentially centripedal pattern which, moving separately, formed the Knee of Asturias. It is postulated that gravity powered the formation of these structures in their present general form. The crust is considered to have been most likely cratonised during the whole of the Phanerozoic over most or the whole of the region. This craton must have been fractured into blocks capable of limited relative movements, both vertical and horizontal. Crustal events leading to the deformation were probably much more intense outside the limits of the orogen considered; for example the Hesperian Massif along the western edge of the Iberian Peninsula. The reconstructions made rule out the possibility of a subsurface connection between the Variscan infrastructures of the Hesperian and Pyrenean orogenes.