Abstract Sierra de la Estrella outcrops belong to the Sierra del Castillo Unit, which is defined in the Guadiato Area, SW Spain, where sedimentation occurred during the Late Viséan. The Guadiato Area is located on the boundary between the Ossa-Morena and Central Iberian structural zones, in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, where Lower Carboniferous outcrops are common. The stratigraphic succession from Sierra de la Estrella is dated precisely by means of foraminifers (Zone 15). The studied rocks are interpreted as having developed on a storm-dominated ramp. Microbial buildups occur interbedded between tempestites and marls. Two main types of mud mounds have been distinguished: large tabular and smaller dome-shaped mud mounds, which were developed in a middle-ramp setting.

Abstract Lower Carboniferous (Upper Viséan and Pendleian) rocks from the Guadiato Area, in the southwestern part of Spain, comprise mixed carbonate-siliciclastic platform facies, with siliciclastics predominant. The calcareous intervals contain a highly diversified foraminiferal fauna, composed mainly of endothyroids, although some primitive fusulinids are also present. Fourteen families, 9 subfamilies, 67 genera, and 134 species or species groups of foraminifera have been identified. These allow the identification of zones 14 to 18 of Mamet’s classification. Within this zonal framework the appearance, disappearance, and maximum abundance of selected taxa in the Guadiato Area are described and discussed. The first appearance of foraminiferal species and genera in the Guadiato Area is compared to that in other European (Montagne Noire, northern France and Belgium; Britain; and Ireland) and North African (Algéria and Morocco) basins. It shows that some foraminifera occurred earlier in Spain whereas other taxa occurred later than in these regions. These early or late appearances of taxa are grouped in two trends, which are probably related to tectonic movements coeval with sedimentation in the Guadiato Area. Moreover, cluster analysis comparing the foraminifera of the twelve neighboring Carboniferous basins or regions establishes the paleobiogeographical relationship between the Guadiato Area and these other regions.

Abstract The bromide “ nothing is constant but change ” could have been coined to describe the geological history of the Permo-Carboniferous—the Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian Periods. Global tectonics, fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, changes in global climate, and evolutionary changes in survivors of mass extinctions created the backdrop for the shifting panorama of this remarkable time in earth history. Catastrophic extinctions during the Frasnian-Famennian crisis decimated global plant and animal populations, leaving survivors to initially struggle through the Devonian-Carboniferous transition. The ensuing evolutionary diversification into less-populated niches was brought to an abrupt end at the close of the Permian Period by the largest of all mass extinctions. Upheavals in plate motion changed the configuration of continents and oceans during this time, resulting in the docking of Gondwana and Euramerica to create the supercontinent Pangea and the “world ocean”, Panthalassa . Within the evolving Permo-Carboniferous “landscape,” a wide diversity of carbonate platforms and reefs flourished. They ranged in size from small mounds a few square meters in size to mega-platforms occupying hundreds of square kilometers, some of which are important mineral and petroleum reservoirs. It is the diversity (carbonate sequence stratigraphy, platform architecture, diagenesis, reservoir characterization, and the composition of reefs and mounds) which Permo-Carboniferous rocks offer that has led to their intensive study by researchers from industry and academia around the globe. This book stems mostly from presentations given at the SEPM-and IAS-sponsored research conference Permo-Carboniferous Carbonate Platforms and Reefs , held May 12-19, 2000, in El Paso, Texas. To an extent, the