Internal structure of a collapsed terrain: The Lújar syncline and its significance for the fold- and sheet-structure of the Alborán Domain (Betic Cordilleras, Spain)

Abstract Detailed structural analysis of the Sierra de Lujar in the western Alpujarras region (Betic Cordilleras, S Spain), a very representative area of the terrain known as the Alboran Domain, has revealed the existence of a very large N-vergent recumbent syncline which involves the whole mountain massif and neighbouring areas. The Lujar syncline and, probably, the associated recumbent anticline which crops out southeast of Sierra de Lujar show a great variation in the orientation of the hinge line. Although having a curved shape, the hinge line is contained in a plane whose attitude coincides with the main attitude of the axial-plane crenulation foliation (Sc), suggesting that it is a sheath fold. The strongly deformed overturned limb of the syncline is cut by two low-angle normal faults displacing towards the north. Similarity in the kinematics between the faults and the fold, and the association between the faults and the high-strain zone in the overturned limb of the fold, suggest that they are related. Regional constraints on the age of the crenulation cleavage and the low-angle normal faults indicate that they formed during the early Miocene late-orogenic extensional event in the Alboran Domain. We propose an alternate explanation for the structure of the Alpujarras region in which the Lujar syncline forms part of a recumbent syncline–anticline pair that extends along much of the Alpujarride outcrop in the southern Betic Cordillera. In several places, the fold is disrupted by low-angle normal faults, and it is overlain by an upper Alpujarride extensional sheet mainly composed of medium- to high-grade metamorphic rocks. We suggest that all these structures arose from the extensional deformation under decreasing temperature conditions of a previously thickened and metamorphosed orogenic crust.