Abstract Upper Miocene (Tortonian–Messinian) to Lower Pliocene (Zanclean) temperate bioclastic limestones occur in the Betic intermontane basins mixed with diverse proportions of siliciclastics. Components are mostly originally calcitic skeletons of invertebrates (especially bryozoans and bivalves) and coralline algae. Carbonate mud content is usually low and cementation is generally weak. These temperate carbonates formed in ramps. The depositional surface profile and local hydrodynamic conditions in each example controlled the occurrence of diverse facies at similar positions within the ramp. Shallow-water facies are well represented and formed in beaches and backshore lagoons, spits, rocky shores and submarine cliffs. Shoals developed seawards of shore deposits; the relatively quiet environments basinwards of the shoals were the areas of maximal carbonate production (factory facies). The lack of early lithification favoured mobilization of skeletal particles. Waves and currents during storms transported carbonate grains landwards from the factory areas to shoals, spits and beaches. Skeletal grains were also transported downslope along the ramp. Re-deposited carbonates occur within basinal marls in submarine lobes and channels fed by channels cross-cutting and excavating the platform sediments. The absence of hermatypic corals and calcareous green algae in shallow-water deposits suggests cool surface water temperatures during carbonate formation. Large benthic foraminifers and oxygen stable isotope values indicate winter surface water temperatures of 16–17°C.

Abstract Tertiary (Palaeogene and Neogene) deposits crop out widely across both the Iberian peninsula and the Balearic Islands (Fig. 13.1 ), and record a dramatic sequence of events during plate convergence. The anticlockwise rotation of an initially isolated Mesozoic Iberian plate was followed by late Cretaceous– Cenozoic interaction with both the European and African plates. This ultimately created two great Alpine mountain belts (Pyrenean-Basque-Cantabrian and Betic-Balearic) (Fig. 13.1 ), each of which generated major Cenozoic foreland basins (Ebro and Guadalquivir). Away from these mountain belts, two large Cenozoic intraplate depressions (Duero and Tajo basins) flank a central horst (Central Range). Another important group of depocentres occurs within a string of Neogene grabens situated along the eastern side of mainland Spain (Fig. 13.1 ), forming part of a long-lived and still-active extensional system linking the Valencia trough with the Rhine and Rhone grabens in Germany and France. Further SE, Neogene extension propagated from the Valencian trough into the southern Betic orogen and created a series of basins from Alicante to Granada and beyond. Tertiary sedimentary rocks in Spain were thus deposited during and after Alpine compression in the Iberian area. This chapter summarizes the main characteristics of these sediments, moving broadly from north to south, a direction reflecting the diachronous shift in Cenozoic Alpine deformation from the Pyrenees to the Betic-Balearic region.

Abstract: Middle Miocene coral-oyster patch reefs crop out at Murchas, south of the city of Granada in southern Spain. They are irregularly shaped masses of coral-oyster boundstone, up to 18m wide and 3-4 m high, that developed on the outer part of a homoclinal ramp, seaward of some sand shoals, in a mixed carbonate-terrigenous enviroment. In these patch reefs, oysters and hermatypic corals are the main frame-builders, their association being entirely fortuitous. Heliastrea is the predominant coral. Porites, Tarbellastraea and the phaceloid coral Mussismilia are also important components. These corals show no clear pattern in their distribution and appear embedded in a silty (bioclastic) matrix. Oysters in the reef community belong to the species Hyotissa squarrosa. They grew vertically one upon another, anchored directly to coral skeletons or, more commonly, attached to other oysters. Hyotissa is irregularly distributed but in places accounts for up to 70% of the reef. Encrusting organisms are restricted to sediments between individual coral colonies or between reefs.