Upper Miocene Karst Collapse Structures of the East Coast, Mallorca, Spain

[EN] In the sea cliffs on the Mallorca Island, Western Mediterranean there are extensive outcrops of Upper Miocene carbonate rocks. On the Eastern coast of Mallorca, the reefal complex is overlain by a Messinian shallowwater carbonate complex. There are abundant Paleokarst collapse structures. The S...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Robledo Ardila, Pedro Agustín, Pomar, L.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2000
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/376294
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/376294
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Paleokarst
Collapse structures
Upper Miocene
Santanyí Limestone
Coral reef
Mallorca
Balearic islands
Spain
Paleokras
Podorne strukture
Zgornji miocen
Apnenec Santanyí
Koralni greben
Balearsko otocje
Spanija
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] In the sea cliffs on the Mallorca Island, Western Mediterranean there are extensive outcrops of Upper Miocene carbonate rocks. On the Eastern coast of Mallorca, the reefal complex is overlain by a Messinian shallowwater carbonate complex. There are abundant Paleokarst collapse structures. The Santanyí Limestone beds are affected by V-incasion structures produced by roof collapse of caverns developed in the underlying reefal complex. According to the model, the origin of some of these karst-collapse structures may be related to early diagenetic processes controlled by high-frequency sea-level fluctuations. During lowstands of sea level, freshwater flow might have create a cave system near the water table by dissolution of aragonite in the reef front facies and coral patches existing in the lagoonal beds. This cave system developed near the subaerial erosion surface. During subsequent rise of sea level inner-shelf beds overlaid the previously karstified reef-core and outer-lagoonal beds. Increase of loading by subsequent accretion of the shallow-water carbonates might have produced V-incasion structures by gravitational collapse of cave roofs when these beds were still not completely consolidated.