Dating the change from endorheic to exorheic conditions in the drainage system of the Granada Basin (southern Spain)

The drainage system of the Granada Basin in southern Spain has evolved from endorheic to exorheic since the basin emerged and became continental in the latest Tortonian (late Miocene). The age of implementation for the recent exorheic, east-west drainage can now be identified by small mammal dating....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Palaios 2009-08, Vol.24 (8), p.544-549
Main Authors: García-alix, Antonio, Minwer-Barakat, Raef, Martín, José M, Suárez, Elvira Martín, Freudenthal, Matthijs
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural drainage systems
Andalusia Spain
assemblages
Betic Cordillera
biostratigraphy
Cacin River
Cacín River
Cenozoic
Chordata
drainage
Drainage basins
Europe
Fluvial erosion
Genil River
Geology
Granada Depression
Granada Spain
Iberian Peninsula
Lakes
lithostratigraphy
lower Pleistocene
Mammalia
Mammals
Neogene
paleogeography
paleohydrology
Pleistocene
Pliocene
Quaternary
RESEARCH NOTE
River basins
Rodents
Sediments
small mammal
Southern Europe
Spain
Stratigraphy
Tertiary
Tetrapoda
Tributaries
upper Pliocene
Vertebrata
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Summary:The drainage system of the Granada Basin in southern Spain has evolved from endorheic to exorheic since the basin emerged and became continental in the latest Tortonian (late Miocene). The age of implementation for the recent exorheic, east-west drainage can now be identified by small mammal dating. This drainage configuration began in the latest Pliocene–earliest Pleistocene due to the capture of the Genil River by a Cacín River tributary. It represented an important change in the behavior of the basin and therefore in the geomorphology, as depositional forms and processes were replaced by erosive ones. While the basin was endorheic, sedimentation was active throughout the basin. Afterward the change to exorheic and up to the present, erosion dominates and sedimentation occurs only in some small, fault-controlled depositional depocenters.
ISSN:0883-1351
1938-5323
DOI:10.2110/palo.2009.p09-015r