Seismic transpressive basement faults and monocline development in a foreland basin (Eastern Guadalquivir, SE Spain)

We examine the late Tortonian to present‐day deformation of an active seismic sector of the eastern Iberian foreland basement of the Betic Cordillera, in southern Spain. Transpressive faults affecting Paleozoic basement offset up to Triassic rocks. Late Triassic clays and evaporites constitute a décollement level decoupling the basement rocks and a ~100 m thick cover of Jurassic carbonates. Monoclines trending NE‐SW to ENE‐WSW deform the Jurassic cover driven by the propagation of high‐angle transpressive right‐lateral basement faults. They favor the migration of clays and evaporites toward the propagated fault tip, i.e., the core of the anticline, resulting in fluid overpressure, fluid flow, and precipitation of fibrous gypsum parallel to a vertical σ 3 . The overall geometry of the studied monoclines, as well as the intense deformation within the clays and evaporites, reproduces three‐layer discrete element models entailing a weak middle unit sandwiched between strong layers. Late Tortonian syn‐folding sediments recorded the initial stages of the fault‐propagation folding. Equivalent unexposed transpressive structures and associated monoclines reactivated under the present‐day NW‐SE convergence are recognized and analyzed in the Sabiote‐Torreperogil region, using seismic reflection, gravity, and borehole data. A seismic series of more than 2100 low‐magnitude earthquakes was recorded within a very limited area of the basement of this sector from October 2012 to May 2013. Seismic activity within a major NE‐SW trending transpressive basement fault plane stimulated rupture along a subsidiary E‐W (~N95°E) strike‐slip relay fault. The biggest event (m bLg 3.9, M W 3.7) occurred at the junction between them in a transpressive relay sector.