The Betic Ophiolitic Association: A Very Significant Geological Heritage That Needs to be Preserved

The Betic Ophiolitic Association (BOA) forms part of the Mulhacen Complex and crops out discontinuously along some 250 km in the central and eastern sectors of the Betic Cordillera (SE Spain). It comprises numerous metre- to kilometre-sized lenses of metamorphic rocks, deriving from basic, ultrabasic and/or sedimentary rock types, representing very important relics of the westernmost end of the Jurassic Tethys ocean floor, which almost completely disappeared by subduction during the collision of the European and African plates. Nevertheless, some rare slices of this ocean floor were exhumed and incorporated into the continental margin, forming the BOA. Therefore, we propose that the Betic Ophiolitic Association should be recognised as a very valuable Spanish geological framework, worthy of being protected against exploitation for economic usages, in which the following three outcrops could be selected as its main geosites: the Cobdar metabasalts and metagabbros, the Lugros eclogites, and the Almirez meta-ultramafic and rodingite rocks.