RT Journal Article
T1 Gypsum resources of Spain: Temporal and spatial distribution
A1 Escavy Fernández, José Ignacio
A1 Herrero Fernández, María Josefa
A1 Arribas Mocoroa, María Eugenia
AB Spain is one of the main gypsum producers in the world. Spanish gypsum reserves are large and a goodknowledge of the location of the ore reserves permits to establish better exploitation strategies. Plottingthe Spanish major gypsum outcrops, using a GIS base, helps to classify them by age, establish the main depositionalcharacter and determine the factors controlling their origin.Evaporitic deposits from Cambrian to Quaternary are preserved throughout Spain. The evaporites are formedby chemical precipitation of natural brines, either of marine or continental origin. The oldest evaporite vestigesin the Spanish geological record have been described in carbonate materials, as gypsum and anhydritepseudomorphs, in Cambrian deposits of the Cantabro–Iberian basin (northern Spain). The first properly identifiedevaporite formation in Spain is located in the Triassic deposits that characterize central and northernEurope. In Spain, evaporites of this age appear well represented in 4394.5 km2 of outcrop area in the easternpart of the Iberian Peninsula. The Lower Jurassic (covering 1068 km2 of outcrop area) and the Cretaceous(covering 706.9 km2 of outcrop area) are periods of intense evaporitic sedimentation, and outcrops appearconcentrated towards central and eastern parts of the Peninsula. More recently, in the Cenozoic, numerouscontinental and marine basins resulted from the tectonic activity produced by the Alpine Orogeny. Here, acombination of different factors produced thick and wide evaporite accumulations (outcrop surface is13592.7 km2). In the Quaternary, evaporitic conditions are common in Spain, including various saline lakes(covering 1092.1 km2 of outcrop area) mainly in the Ebro basin and La Mancha zone. In addition, there aremany artificial marine salinas.The evaporitic conditions in a basin strongly depend on factors such as climate, tectonics and brine composition.A study of the spatial distribution and age of the gypsum-bearing units in Spain suggests a wide variationin factors controlling the origin of gypsum deposits. The Spanish evaporite precipitation from Permianto Jurassic times was controlled by global conditions such as climate. They were formed during a globalwarming period. On the other hand, evaporites formed from late Cretaceous to Neogene were moreinfluenced by regional factors that were related to the tectonic activity produced by the Alpine Orogeny. Atpresent evaporite precipitation occurs due to the endorheic character of lakes in some parts of Spain.
PB Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam
SN 0169-1368
YR 2012
FD 2012
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/42423
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/42423
LA eng
DS Docta Complutense
RD 17 abr 2025