Imperial College London
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DrGarethRoberts

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7363gareth.roberts

 
 
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Location

 

2.50Royal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Conway-Jones:2019:10.1029/2018gc007899,
author = {Conway-Jones, BW and Roberts, GG and Fichtner, A and Hoggard, M},
doi = {10.1029/2018gc007899},
journal = {Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems},
pages = {1138--1163},
title = {Neogene epeirogeny of Iberia},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2018gc007899},
volume = {20},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The origin of Iberia's topography is examined by combining gravity, magmatic, topographic and seismological observations with geomorphic considerations. We have four principal results. First, highest coherence between freeair gravity and topography is at wavelengths 250 km where admittance indicates that elastic thickness of Iberia's plate is 20 ± 3 km. These results imply that flexural and subplate support of Iberian topography could be expressed at wavelengths of O(100) km. Secondly, PtoS receiver functions and simple isostatic calculations indicate that whilst crustal thickness variations and flexural loading (e.g. as a result of plate shortening) partially explain the elevation of Pyrenean, Betics, Cantabrian, Spanish Central System and Iberian Chain topography, they fail to explain the elevation of large parts of Iberia. Thirdly, a new full waveform shear wave tomographic model and velocity to temperature conversions suggest that the asthenosphere beneath Iberia is anomalously slow and has excess temperatures of up to 162 ± 14°C. Simple isostatic calculations indicate asthenospheric support of topography of up to 1 km. NeogeneRecent (∼23–0 Ma) extrusive magmatism (e.g. Calatrava, Catalan) sit atop many of the slow shear wave velocity anomalies. Finally, biostratigraphic data, combined with inversion of 3217 river profiles, show that most of Iberia's topography grew during the last ∼30 Ma at rates of up to 0.3 mm yr−1. Bestfitting theoretical rivers have a low residual rms misfit (=0.96) and calculated uplift is consistent with an independent inventory of stratigraphic and biostratigraphic observations. We suggest that NeogeneRecent growth of most of central Iberia's topography was a result of asthenospheric support.
AU  - Conway-Jones,BW
AU  - Roberts,GG
AU  - Fichtner,A
AU  - Hoggard,M
DO  - 10.1029/2018gc007899
EP  - 1163
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 1525-2027
SP  - 1138
TI  - Neogene epeirogeny of Iberia
T2  - Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2018gc007899
UR  - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GC007899
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/66699
VL  - 20
ER  -
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