The Messinian stromatolites of the Sierra del Colmenar (Western Mediterranean): facies characterization and sedimentological interpretation

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1 Instituto Superior de Correlación Geológica (INSUGEO), Universidad Nacional de Tucumán-CONICET, Tucumán, Argentina
2 Department of Earth Sciences and the Environment, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, Spain
3 Department of Botany and Geology, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.26648v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Marine Biology, Paleontology
Keywords
Stromatolites, Messinian Salinity Crisis, Bajo Segura basin, Neogene, Carbonate sedimentology, Terminal Carbonate Complex, western Mediterranean
Copyright
© 2018 Villafañe et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Villafañe PG, Corbí H, Cónsole-Gonella C, Ruiz-Sánchez FJ. 2018. The Messinian stromatolites of the Sierra del Colmenar (Western Mediterranean): facies characterization and sedimentological interpretation. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26648v1

Abstract

The Messinian stromatolites belonging to the Terminal Carbonate Complex unit, from the northern sector of the Bajo Segura Basin (CAM section, Sierra del Colmenar, SE Spain) have been studied. To understand the direct relationship between the morphologies of the stromatolites and their deposition context in order to reconstruct the environmental conditions for their growth, a detailed study of their architecture, external morphology and internal morphology was carried out (macrofabric and microfabric). The stromatolites are made up of domic bodies laterally linked to each other, generating a macrostructure (bioherms) with lateral continuity. This stromatolitic macrostructure presents variations in its internal morphology, giving rise to seven subfacies product of the environmental changes experienced during the growth of the microbial bushes. The stromatolites are arranged parallel of coastline acting as paleogeographic barriers to reduce the physical stress of the environment. Although in general lines suggests a coastal environment, restricted and shallow for the formation of the whole level, the variation in internal morphology is evidence of minor changes in the physical environment.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.