Seismic site characterization of the proposal ICDP drilling project in the Baza Basin (Southern Spain)

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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 Late Miocene to Middle Pleistocene. Infilling of the Baza Basin proceeded mainly by deposition of fine-grained deposits arranged in concentric facies belts in a lake complex. The expansion and contraction of these nested paleoenvironments serve as highly sensitive indicators of climate change which makes the Baza Basin a unique site for an integrated paleoclimate-oriented study of the last 7Ma of SE Europe. The planned LARSEI drilling project (LAcustrine Record of SE Iberia; submitted pre-proposal to ICDP) proposes to drill the Baza evaporitic basin in order to establish a realistic paleo-climatic record through the final Neogene (including the entire Pliocene) that very likely reflects regional events in the western Mediterranean as well as global climate milestones. Prerequisite for the 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. We propose to aquire 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; presite study) and to better understand the structure and evolution of the Baza basin.