Título: Inversion Of Synrift Normal Faults In The High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Autor: Beauchamp, W.; Barazangi M; Demnati, A.; El Alji, M.

Fuente: Leading Edge, 16 (8): 1171-1175, Aug. 1997

Año: 1997

Descriptores: Morocco; Atlas Mt; Basin Inversion; Complex Faulting; Reverse Fault; Structural Geology Basement Structure (Geol); Fault Propagation Fold; Folding (Geology); Overthrust; Plate Tectonics; Rift Zone

Tipo de documento: Articulo

Resumen: Structural inversion related to intracontinental rifting occurs when extensional rift faults reverse their sense of motion during subsequent episodes of compressional tectonics. Features generated by extension, such as half grabens, are uplifted to form positive anticlinal structures. Mountain belts resulting from the convergence of continent-continent or continent-oceanic plates usually form along the margins of such plates. In contrast, intracontinental mountain belts such as the Atlas Mt. of North Africa, the Palmyrides of Syria, and the Cordillera Oriental/Merida of Colombia and Venezuela often form hundreds of kilometers from nearby plate boundaries. Stresses generated by plate convergence are transmitted to the interior of continental plates where the strain is accommodated along preexisting zones of weakness in the crust, such as rifts, aulacogens, and sutures, resulting in intracontinental mountain belts. The High Atlas Mt. of Morocco are an intracontinental mountain belt formed by the inversion of a preexisting Mesozoic rift system. The Atlas Mt. of North Africa were formed during the Alpine orogeny in the Miocene-Oligocene.