Three-dimensional shape and emplacement of the Cardenchosa deformed pluton (Variscan Orogen, southwestern Iberian Massif)

The Cardenchosa pluton is a Lower Carboniferous Variscan granite located in the southwestern Iberian Massif. It intruded along the contact between the Sierra Albarrana and Azuaga tectonic units. To the northwest the pluton connects with the left-lateral Azuaga fault. The pluton appears in the footwall of the low-angle normal Casa del Café fault, which crops out to the west of the granite. Gravimetric modelling shows the pluton to have a flat bottom at a depth of 2 km. Strain analysis of post-emplacement deformation of the pluton indicates that: (a) the deformation of the pluton accommodates the displacement of the Azuaga fault; and (b) the pluton prior to the solid state deformation was a lens-shaped laccolith of approximately 10 km diameter and 2 km thickness. The Cardenchosa pluton was a single pulse of magma trapped in a rheological discontinuity of the upper crust (the contact between the Sierra Albarrana and Azuaga units). The magma would ascend through dikes since no root has been detected. The tectonic scenario during the intrusion was one of regional extension.