Unraveling Multiple Thermotectonic Events Accommodated by Crustal-Scale Faults in Northern Iberia, Spain: Insights From K-Ar Dating of Clay Gouges

Large-scale faults in the continental crust are significant features that control the evolution of sedimentary basins and intraplate mountain chains. Deciphering their evolution is a significant task because faults slip and reactivate in a variety of geological settings. In this work, clay gouges of two major orogen-scale, long-lived faults in northern Iberia, the Rio Grio and Valles-Penedes Faults, were investigated by X-ray diffraction and K-Ar isotopic analysis. Illite polytype determinations of 44 subfractions (from <0.1 to 10 mu m) allowed us to discriminate between authigenic/synkinematic illite crystals formed during faulting and detrital illite crystals inherited from the host rock. K-Ar dating provided a detailed set of ages corresponding to key stages of the thermotectonic evolution of the Iberian Plate: (a) the Permian to Late Triassic extensional/transtensional activity associated to the emplacement of Late Variscan magmatic bodies and hydrothermal mineralizations, (b) the opening of the Central Atlantic Rift during Late Triassic-Early Jurassic times, (c) the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous rifting that led to the development of Mesozoic extensional/transtensional basins in northern Iberia, (d) the final stage of the anticlockwise rotation of the Iberian Plate with respect to Eurasia and the accommodation of the first Pyrenean compressional pulses in Campanian time, and (e) the positive inversion of Mesozoic extensional basins due to far-field stresses associated with the Alpine orogeny during the Paleogene. The results highlight that thermotectonic conditions characterized by high-geothermal gradients strongly favor fault movement and neoformation of clay minerals in fault gouges, regardless of the prevailing tectonic regime.