The intra-mountain Baza Basin in Southern Spain is the largest of the Late Neogene continental basins of the Betic Cordillera. It provides an up to 2.5 km thick archive of lacustrine and ancillary continental deposits from the last 7 million years. Due to the specific conditions of the sediment deposition, the Baza basin is a unique site for paleo-climatic studies including studies of climate change and paleo-climatic events in the western Mediterranean as well as on a global scale.
A planned ICDP drilling project (LARSEI – LAcustrine Record of SE Iberia), lead by a consortium of Spanish, US American and German scientists, proposes to drill the Baza evaporitic basin in order to analyze in detail the sedimentary record. Prerequisite for future drilling activities is the profound knowledge of the basin structure and local zones of neo-tectonic deformation, mainly related to the Baza fault bounding the basin to the west. It is proposed to acquire seismic multichannel profiles providing high-resolution images of the basin and related structural units (i.e. faults). The results of these measurements will both help to guide the drilling activities (including drilling site selection; pre-site study) and to better understand the structure and evolution of the Baza basin. To achieve these goal seismic data along three profiles will be aquired which are crossing the Baza Basin and the bounding fault system (Figure). Each of the profiles is 18 km long; Vibroseis will be used as seismic sources. The field measurements shall be conducted end of October 2013.

Time Frame

• 10/2013

Funding

• DFG - German Research Foundation

Principal Investigators

• Dr. Christian Haberland
• Manfred Stiller
• Dr. Maria Baumann-Wilke

Cooperations

• Universidad de Barcelona, Spain;
• Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain;
• Universidad de Granada, Spain

Methods & Equipment

• DSS Cubes (single channel and three component) Reflection seismics, CDP-Processing, common reflection surface stack (CRS), pre-stack depth migration

Publications/Results

• Haberland, C., Gibert, L., Jurado, M. J., Stiller, M., Baumann-Wilke, M., Scott, G., Mertz, D. F. (2017): Architecture and tectono-stratigraphic evolution of the intramontane Baza Basin (Bétics, SE-Spain): Constraints from seismic imaging. - Tectonophysics, 709, p. 69-84. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2017.03.022