**6.2 Iberian plate kinematics and Pyrenees orogeny**

The Pyrenean orogeny in southwestern Europe is an ~E-W trending mountain belt, about 450 km long and 125 km wide (**Figure 6**) that formed in the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene in response to convergence between the hyperextension NE continental margins of the Iberian Microplate and the Southwest Eurasian Plate [150]. The Iberia microplate was part of Pangea in the Paleozoic [151] but separated in the Late Jurassic [152–154]. Based on magnetic lineation in the Atlantic Ocean and Bay of Biscay to the west, the separation of the Iberian Microplate was N-S directional rifting before it rotated counterclockwise early Aptian (e.g., Scissor-type opening) (**Figure 7**) [155–158]. Analysis of the paleomagnetic record suggests a ~ 35° counterclockwise rotation of the Iberia microplate completed in the early Aptian (126 ~ 118 My) [150]. Such a high amount of rotation should be associated with subduction beneath the Eurasian margin [150, 157, 158] and the North Pyrenean fault zone represents the suture between Iberia and southwest Eurasia (**Figure 6**) [150]. Structural and deep seismic studies have shown that the orogen is asymmetric, with the Iberian continental lithosphere underthrust at least ~80 km beneath Europe [ 159, 160]. However, several tomographic studies show no evidence of a subducted slab anywhere beneath the Pyrenees [161–163], ruling out the opening of a broad oceanic basin prior to Late Cretaceous convergence [161]. Vissers et al. [150] explained the absence of a remnant subducted slab by the motion of Iberia/Eurasia relative to the mantle, where the Pyrenean region may have laterally displaced from a subducting slab remnant after slab break-off. Mantle tomography indicates that such a slab remnant may exist today between 1900 and 1500 km depth beneath southern Algeria [150].
