Updated Bouguer anomalies of the Iberian Peninsula: a new perspective to interpret the regional geology

ABSTRACT

Bouguer anomaly maps are powerful cartographic tools used mainly by geoscientists and natural resources' companies (oil, mining, etc.) since they reflect rock density distribution at different depths, allowing the identification of different tectonic features. At upper crustal levels, Bouguer anomaly maps can help, for instance, in characterizing possible ore deposits, ground water reservoirs, petroleum resources, CO₂ storage sites and sedimentary basins; at deeper crustal levels they can help to further refine seismic velocity models or other integrated geophysical models and thus help in deciphering the lateral density variations within the crust and the geometry of the base of the crust. This new Bouguer anomaly map at a 1:1,500,000 scale is based on the compilation of 210,283 gravity stations covering the Iberian Peninsula (c. 583,254 km²). The new map upgrades previous maps in two ways: (1) it is built up from a database with a 15% more spatial coverage than previous compilations and (2) it is freely available. This map show shorter wavelengths than previous published maps thus allowing investigation of smaller geological features.

KEYWORDS:

• Gravity anomalies
• Bouguer anomaly map
• Iberian Peninsula
• regional geology

Acknowledgements

The research was conducted at the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera – CSIC and the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España. Thanks to Javier Navas, David Pedreira, Carlos Marín and Ana Ruíz-Constan for their collaboration throughout this work, to Josep Gallart as PI of the TopoIberia Project and to Roberto Rodriguez as TopoIberia coordinator at IGME. We also thank Matti Peljo, Rene E. Chavez and Roberta Mary Vidotti for their constructive comments that have helped to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Concepción Ayala http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8457-8253

Fernando Bohoyo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1044-8816

Adolfo Maestro http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7474-725X

María Isabel Reguera http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7426-5437

Montserrat Torne http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6585-4283

Félix Rubio http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7912-3254

Manel Fernàndez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4487-2359

Additional information

Funding

The presented work has been supported by TopoIberia Consolider-Ingenio CSD2006–0004.