Geology of the Iberian Peninsula

The Hercynian fold belt is mostly buried by Mesozoic and Cenozoic cover rocks to the east but nevertheless outcrops through the Iberian Chain and the Catalan Coastal Ranges.

Then the Central Iberian zone appears near A Coruña, through the north of Portugal, and through the middle of Spain, including the Montes de Toledo.

The Penas and Vidrias area, close to the western boundary of the Cantabrian zone has a complete succession of Ordovician deposits.

[2] The San Pedro and Furada Formations are up to 300 metres thick and consists of shale and iron bearing sandstone interbedded, These are from Wenlock Ludlow and Lower Gedinian times.

In the Devonian Period deposition occurred on the western side, with dolomite, argillaceous limestone, marl and shale from the Raneces Complex or La Vid Formation.

Further east in the Picos de Europa it remained covered in shallow water with continuous formation of a carbonate platform.

The Ponga Nappe Province is to the east of the Central Coal Basin, Stephanian age molasse deposits overlie the other Carboniferous rocks and are unrelated to the Hercynian (Variscan) orogeny.

All these structures formed between Lower Devonian and Stephanian B-C. From the Cambrian Period, the Candana Quartzite is equivalent to the Herreria Formation and is 1 to 2 km thick.

Black shales, called the Luarca Slates are Llanvirnian to Llandeilian age (middle to upper Ordovician) and are 0.5 to 1 km thick.

The lower Carboniferous has a flysch facies along the southern boundary of the zone, and also in the San Vitero area and around the Morais and Bragança Massifs.

[3] The Ossa Morena zone (OMZ) forms a band in the southern part of Portugal and the south west corner of Spain.

In the Late Ordovician syenite and alkaline granite intrusions rose along the Córdoba Abrantes belt The Silurian Period has volcanic rocks both acid and basic, and also pelitic deposits.

[4] The South Portuguese zone (SPZ) is an exotic terrane coming from a different continent to the more northern parts of the Iberian plate.

The two mica leucogranites can be found at Friol, Porto-Viseu, Moncorvo-Vila Real, Vigo, Finisterre, Gil Ibarguchi, La Guardia and also near Salamanca.

Some of the batholiths of this mixed type of granite are in Cabeza de Araya, Forgoselo, Ponferrada and Boal, and La Runa.

On the south side deposits of carbonates and clastic sediments formed a shelf in shallow water during late Triassic and Liassic times.

This plain extends south to the Ampere and Coral Patch Seamounts, the Madeira Tore Rise in the west and the continental slope in the east.

Further out to sea off the west coast of Spain is the Galicia Bank, which consists of continental crust, and was formerly attached to the Flemish Cap.

In the Paleocene (66 to 59 million years ago) dark black shales mark the lack of oxygen in stagnant water.

Gavarine Thrust Sheet: The Betic Cordillera is a mountain range in southern and southeastern Spain, oriented in an ENE direction.

The Devonian and Early Carboniferous is represented by gray slates and conglomerate, with smaller amounts of limestone, chert, and radiolarite.

In Late Miocene a sill (land bridge) formed in the Gibraltar arc, disconnecting the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean several times.

The Alboran Basin south of Spain and Gibraltar formed in the early Miocene by extending and thinning continental crust to only 12 or 15 km thick.

The so-called "Big '95" debris flow, is a large landslide off the coast from Castellón de la Plana, beyond the Columbretes Islands.

[28] Turiasaurus riodevensis, a truly giant dinosaur that lived between the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous, was also found in Riodeva in Teruel Spain.

[32] Mines at La Unión, Murcia produced lead, iron, silver, and zinc since Roman times but closed in 1991 due to depletion.

Roman mines operated at Arrayanes, La Cruz, and El Centenillo and Salas de Galiarda in Sierra Morena.

[43] In the year 1754 José Torrubia published Aparato para la Historia Natural Española [es] considered the first treatise written in Spanish defending the thesis of the universal flood[44] and drawing fossils from the Iberian Peninsula and elsewhere.

[57] Between 1875 and 1891 Lucas Mallada y Pueyo published in the Boletín Geológico y Minero the work Sinopsis de las especies fósiles que se han encontrado en España (Synopsis of the fossil species that have been found in Spain).

[65] During World War II, the French government employed Georges Zbyszewski to document Portuguese mineral deposits, especially tungsten.

Major components of the geology of the Iberian Peninsula
Geological map of the Iberian Peninsula
The Cantabrian Mountains. The peak Alto de Brenas in Riotuerto has a height of 579 metres (1,900 ft).
Picos de Europa mountain range.
The Galician Massif mountains surrounding the Sil River in Lugo , Galicia .
Current sediment outcrops from the Iberian peninsula Mesozoic basins. It has also been featured the Messejana-Plasencia dyke, whose activity was mainly Jurassic .
Map of the Lusitanian Basin
Central System geological section.
Pico del Aneto , the highest mountain of the Pyrenees
Tectonic map of major structures in the Iberian Peninsula
The Rock of Gibraltar is a monolithic limestone promontory created during the Jurassic period some 200 million years ago and uplifted during the Betic Orogeny.
Iberian Cenozoic sedimentary basins
Concavenator corcovatus dinosaur fossil from Las Hoyas, Spain
Cinnabar (mercury ore) from Almadén, Spain
Roman mining tools from Portmán
Title page of Aparato para la Historia Natural Española
the first geological map of Spain drawn by Joaquín Ezquerra del Bayo