New data on Lower Carboniferous stratigraphy and palaeogeography of the Malaguide complex (Betic Cordillera, Southern Spain)

The Malaguide basement is formed by a thick, strongly deformed but weakly m etamorphosed sedimentary succession of ?Ordovician-Carboniferous age, mainl y made of basinal mudstones and turbidites, which includes a thin but consp icuous Lower Carboniferous chert-limestone interval (Falcona formation). Th e chert member (ribbon radiolarites) yielded, for the first time in Souther n Spain, Tournaisian radiolarians. The Visean age of the limestone member i s refined by conodonts. This formation is related to a period of generalize d pelagic sedimentation, caused by relatively high sea level, low elastic i nput and high equatorial productivity, which preceded the closure of the Pa laeotethys basins due to the Variscan orogeny. (C) 2000 Academie des scienc es / Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.