Nevado-Filábride Complex, Andalusia, Spaini

Regional Level Types
Nevado-Filábride Complex	Complex
Andalusia	Autonomous Community
Spain	Country

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Gneisses, mica schists.
The complex shows an alternation of schists and fine-grained metamorphic rocks. Traditionally, the fine-grained rocks have been described in the geological literature of the region as slates or lutites based on their macroscopic aspect. The schists and slates layers are highly variable in thickness and frequency; both alternate over hundreds of meters of thickness. Although the field aspects of the fine-grained rocks inevitably led to classifying them as slates, the interlayering with schists, with notable differences in their apparent metamorphic grade, would entail a problem from the metamorphic point of view. These slate rocks can be classified, alternatively, as mylonites.
Another group of outcrops of the complex are some 15 km to the SSE.

The basement of the LU consists of a highly monotonous sequence of graphitic schists over 5000 m thick, with increasingly abundant intercalations of quartzite layers towards the top of the succession. A distinctive feature of the graphitic schists in the basement of the LU is their petrological monotony and the systematic absence of other lithotypes commonly found in the basements of higher continental units, such as tourmaline gneisses, amphibolic gneisses, and skarn rocks. Unconformably overlying the graphitic schist basement is a sequence of graphite-free metapelites and metapsammites, beginning with a basal metaconglomerate. This LU cover corresponds to the Tahal Formation, as originally defined by the first detailed studies of the Sierra de los Filabres, where it is best exposed. Both the basement and the cover of the LU exhibit intermediate pressure–temperature metamorphism, ranging from Ab-Ep amphibolite to greenschist facies.
The Middle Unit (MU) is arguably the most controversial subject among researchers studying the NFC. While the ophiolitic nature of its mafic and ultramafic rocks was recognized early, and was even suggested in the pioneering studies of the NFC, only recently has it been established that these rocks form an ophiolitic mélange, similar to those documented in many accretionary- and collisional-type orogenic belts worldwide.
The Upper Unit (UU) we rename here the Mulhacén Unit for consistency with our previous work and because its graphite schists are the ones outcropping at Mulhacén Peak (3479 m) in the Sierra Nevada. The Upper Unit consists of two superimposed continental sequences, both comprising a graphite schist basement overlain by a cover of non-graphitic schists and marbles.

Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

92 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Rock list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities