Paleogeography of Catalonia from the last 120 million years, from the Upper Cretaceous to the present day
These figures illustrate the paleogeography of Catalonia over the last 120 million years, since the late Cretaceous until the present. The paleogeographical situation in the Triassic (1) serves as reference for the rest:
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In the Pliocene, the configuration of the relief was practically the same as the present one (8).
At the end of the Oligocene and during the Miocene (7) Corsica and Sardinia break away from the actual Catalan coast and the western Mediterranean was opened.
The Pyrenees continued their formation during the Oligocene (6), and made the waters of the Atlantic Ocean recede little by little; as a consequence, the Ebro Basin became a closed sea that dried up progressively.
During the Paleocene and the Eocene both plates collided, and the uprising of the Pyrenean Mountain Range started. The flexion of the lithosphere produced by the collision, together with a rise in the sea level, permitted the formation of an Atlantic gulf in the Ebro Basin during the Eocene (5).
Towards the end of the late Cretaceous (4) the moving closer of the Iberian and the European Plates started, together with a practically general emersion which continued throughout the Paleocene. The Bay of Biscay is already very clearly defined.
At the beginning of the late Cretaceous (100 Ma), the greater part of this area was submerged (3), the Ebro Massif remaining as an island in the limits between the Atlantic and the Tethys Oceans.
During the early Cretaceous (2), the tectonic context is extensive and this portion of the Iberian Plate is already limited to the northwest by the incipient Atlantic Ocean.
These figures illustrate the paleogeography of Catalonia over the last 120 million years, since the late Cretaceous until the present. The paleogeographical situation in the Triassic (1) serves as reference for the rest.
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