Sorbas Basin


The Sorbas Basin is a sedimentary basin around the town of Sorbas in Almeria Province in south-east Spain. It is believed to have been formed by extension, between two fault-bounded blocks which rotated anti-clockwise to take up the compression resulting from Europe's collision with Africa. The basin is filled with turbidites and evaporites of the Tortonian-Messinian ages of the Miocene Epoch.
It is a matter of some debate whether the basin dried out at the same time as the main Mediterranean basins.

Basin fill

The basin is divided into the following members:
The basin was separated from the main Mediterranean basin during the Messinian salinity crisis; therefore the timing of the Yesares Member relative to the main basin evaporites is crucial to distinguish between models of how the Mediterranean dried out.