Maria del PIlar Mata

• PhD
• Instituto Geológico y Minero de España

This study addresses the in situ mobility of fluoride and aluminum in two different ashfall deposits accumulated during the 2021 eruption of the Tajogaite volcano (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain), which were exposed to contrasting conditions of ambient humidity and precipitation. We selected one site to the east of the volcanic emission center, lo...

Leaching tests conducted on fresh ashfall samples taken soon after the onset of the 2021 Tajogaite eruption occurred at the Northwest flank of the Cumbre Vieja Volcanic Ridge in La Palma (Canary Islands) have revealed relevant geochemical trends which have important environmental significance and practical implications. The ashfall deposited on mos...

We have conducted a monitoring survey and paleolimnological study of a W-E transect of six high altitude lakes (1870–2630 m asl) in the western and central Pyrenees (Spain) to evaluate the regional response to current global change in high altitude Mediterranean mountains. The reconstructed Total Organic Carbon (TOCflux) and lithogenic (Lflux) flux...

This work constitutes the first geochemical, mineralogical and textural analysis of the early fumarolic deposits that appeared in the Tajogaite Volcano (La Palma island, Spain) one month after the official end of the eruptive process. Fourteen fumaroles grouped into 5 study areas have been characterized following a novel methodology that includes o...

A las 14:10 UTC del 19 de septiembre de 2021 comenzó la erupción en la isla de La Palma, en la zona de Tajogaite-Cabeza de Vaca, en el municipio de El Paso. La erupción se dio por finalizada el día 13 de diciembre de 2021 a las 22:21 UTC, durando 85 días y 8 horas. La erupción, considerada fisural y de tipo estromboliano, produjo coladas de lava en...

We present a multidisciplinary study of morphology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, tectonic structure, and physical oceanography to report that the complex geomorphology of the Palomares continental margin and adjacent Algerian abyssal plain (i.e., Gulf of Vera, Western Mediterranean), is the result of the sedimentary response to the Aguilas Arc cont...

The Holocene morpho-stratigraphic evolution of a compound submarine deltaic system linked with the Antas and Almanzora Rivers on the narrow (< 5 km) shelf along the Palomares margin (southeastern Iberia) has been reconstructed from the integrated analysis of geomorphology, seismo-stratigraphy and sedimentology. The shelf morphology is characterized...

The José Ramírez del Pozo (1936-1996) levigates collection is preserved in the core repository of the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME) in Peñarroya Pueblonuevo (Córdoba). It includes 43,563 micropaleontological samples and the laboratory check-in notebooks. All records have been transferred into a database enabling to assess the scient...

The Campián-1 bis borehole in the locality of Monzón (Huesca) crosses the thick continental series that fill the northern margin of the Ebro Basin. It was drilled for the company Salmueras Depuradas S. L. in order to investigate the presence of halite in the Barbastro Fm and evaluate its economic exploitability for brine production. The well was co...

Here we present an environmental magnetic study of atmospheric deposition collected by a multi-site network in Spain that covers fourteen locations representative of urban, industrial, agricultural, and natural environments across southwestern Europe. We have combined magnetic methods with scanning electron microscopy and geochemical data to charac...

Two Quaternary plastered contourite drifts, with terraced and low-mounded morphologies, make up the continental slope and base-of-slope in the northwestern Alboran Sea, respectively, between the Guadiaro and Baños turbidite systems, close to the Strait of Gibraltar. Considering their significant lateral extent, the link between the contourite drift...

This article offers an overview of the main sedimentary systems defining the geomorphology of deep sea environments from low to high latitudes. Mass-transport deposits, turbidite systems, contourites, volcaniclastic aprons, glacial trough mouth systems, carbonate mounds and other bathyal systems, such as pelagites, hemipelagites, mid-ocean channels...

We have analyzed potential harmful trace elements (PHTE; Pb, Hg, Zn, As and Cu) on sediment cores retrieved from lake Marboré (LM) (2612 m a.s.l, 42°41′N; 0° 2′E). PHTE variability allowed us to reconstruct the timing and magnitude of trace metal pollutants fluxes over the last 3000 years in the Central Pyrenees. A statistical treatment of the data...

Clay dehydration at great depth generates fluids and overpressures in organic-rich sediments that can release isotopically light boron from mature organic matter, producing 10B-rich fluids. The B can be incorporated into the tetrahedral sites of authigenic illite during the illitization of smectite. Therefore, the crystal-chemical and geochemical c...

Abstract: The aim of this study is to setup the geometric and temporal relationships between the Marismas Clay Formation and the fluvial terraces system of the lower Guadalquivir valley. In order to establish this correlation, the data provided by the geological-geomorphological maps of the area have been combined with the data of the lithological...

This article presents the results of a 3.5-year monitoring of atmospheric deposition from a 15-sites network covering remote, agricultural, urban and industrial areas in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. The atmospheric deposition of insoluble and soluble-inorganic aerosols has been studied from a comprehensive perspective. Annual flu...

Large national programs in the United States and several Asian countries have defined and characterised their marine methane hydrate occurrences in some detail, but European hydrate occurrence has received less attention. The European Union-funded project “Marine gas hydrate – an indigenous resource of natural gas for Europe” (MIGRATE) aimed to det...

The interaction between karst hypogenic processes and Late Pleistocene active faulting determines the present topography and shape of the Benís Cave within the Cieza Ranges in the eastern Betic Cordillera (SE Spain). This cave represents the explored deepest cave within the Murcia region, reaching the deepest point at -320 m, and showing “in situ”...

The high-mountain lakes of Saliencia (El Valle, La Cueva, Calabazosa and Cerveriz), in the Somiedo Natural Park (Asturias, NW Spain), have been subject to different anthropogenic pressures, including metal mining, cattle grazing, damming activities and water channeling works for hydroelectric exploitation. This paper reports the results of a recent...

This chapter deals with the two Alpine Foreland Basins of the Iberian Peninsula. The first part of the chapter refers to the South Pyrenean Foreland Basin and its westward prolongation, the Basque–Cantabrian Paleogene Basin. It includes: (1) the introductory concepts about the basin extend, margins, sedimentary systems, basin evolution and segmenta...

The study of three lacustrine sedimentary archives along an altitudinal transect in the Southern Central Pyrenees - lakes Estanya, Basa and Marboré- has provided a unique record of changes in anthropogenic trace metal concentrations over the last six centuries in NE Iberian Peninsula. Although site-specific processes influence metals enrichments in...

The Gibraltar Arc is a complex tectonic region, and several competing models have been proposed to explain its evolution. We studied the sedimentary fill of the Guadalquivir Basin to identify tectonic processes that were occurring when the reopening of the Strait of Gibraltar led to the reestablishment of Mediterranean outflow. We present a chronos...

Sedimentological, geochemical and magnetic data in a ~ 7-m sequence from Marboré Lake (2612 m asl, central Pyrenees) provide information about environmental variability since the last glacier retreat (14.6 cal ka BP) in high-altitude Pyrenean environments. The sediment sequence is composed of millimeter- to centimeter-thick rhythmites made of finer...

Lake Marboré (or Ibón de Marboré) is a high-altitude (2612 m.a.s.l.) alpine lake situated in the central area of the Pyrenees range (NE Spain), which forms part of Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. This emblematic lake of glacial origin is chiefly fed by snow and meltwater, and the outlet is the headwaters of the Cinca River. Given the extrem...

Oxygen depletion (temporal or permanent) in freshwater ecosystems is a widespread and globally important environmental problem. However, the factors behind increased hypolimnetic anoxia in lakes and reservoirs are often diverse and may involve processes at different spatial and temporal scales. Here, we evaluate the combined effects of different an...

Report on the geophysics and seabed sampling made on the submarine canyon of Algeciras to know its geological, geomorphological and benthic characteristics. In addition, a series of underwater mounds were studied in two sectors of the northern margin of the Alboran Sea.

The multidisciplinary analysis of natural climate change archives (ice cores, lacustrine and marine sediments, speleothems, etc.) have allowed to reconstruct the main variations in temperature and hydrological conditions recorded during the Quaternary period (last 2.58 million years). Many of these reconstructions are available online in databases...

The study of past climates, particularly those occurring during the Quaternary, is a fundamental tool to understand both current geoenvironmental processes and their past evolution without anthropogenic activities. It is based on the information stored in different paleorecords, both terrestrial (lacustrine sediments, stalagmites, peatbogs, tree-ri...

La Larri is a hanging glacial valley that drains through a spectacular set of waterfalls (Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, Pyrenees). A lateral moraine, deposited by the main glacier (Pineta valley), facilitated the deposition of juxta-glacial lacustrine sediments. This lacustrine record begins shortly before the global Last Glacial Maximum, b...

Lake Enol, a mountain lake in Northern Spain, is located at 1,070 m a.s.l. in Picos de Europa National Park (PENP), an emblematic area of limestone formations, Atlantic forests, mountain meadows and a varied and rich wildlife which led to its declaration as National Park (first one in Spain) in 1918. The Enol Lake is one of the most visited places...

La Cueva is a 21 m deep lake of glacial origin located at 1550 m.a.s.l in the western area of the Cantabrian Range (Asturias, NW Spain). Iron ore within the carbonatic bedrock outcropping in the catchment has been mined since the early 19th century until 1978. The area was recently subjected to an environmental restoration (2006) involving the re-d...

High-resolution, multi-proxy lake records from Iberian Mediterranean mountains with robust chronologies have allowed the identification of centennial to decadal scale paleohydrological fluctuations during the last 2000 years within the Iberian Peninsula. The dataset illustrates sharp regional gradients and timing differences when compared to climat...

The project involves the study of Enol and Marboré lakes in order to study the current state, the assessment of the impact of the global change, and the changes of the last 3000 years. Lake Enol is subjected to a high-anthropic pressure since the nineteenth century: mining, water regulation, erosion, tourism and livestock. A hypolimnetic anoxia is...

A detailed surveying and a new geological map of the sheet at 1:50.000 number 999/1016 (Huelva - Los Caños), located at the west end of the Guadalquivir Basin, has been carried out. This data allows us to propose a new organization of the lithological units present at the west side of the Odiel River. These units include all the sedimentary record...

In this study, we reconstruct the recent environmental evolution of the inner Cadiz Bay using sedimentary records reaching back as far as AD 1700. We report lithological descriptions of the sediments and extensive mineralogical and geochemical analyses. An extraction technique that identifies different Fe phases provides an assessment of diagenetic...

The lakes La Cueva and El Valle (Somiedo Natural Park, Asturias, NW Spain) form, along with a number of other smaller lakes (e.g., Calabazosa, Cervériz), a stunning mountain landscape known as “Saliencia Lakes”. Situated at an altitude of 1,600 m.a.s.l. and surrounded by the peaks of Picos Albos and Peña la Mortera, this group of glacial alpine lak...

Lake Marboré (or Ibón de Marboré) is a high-altitude (2,605 m.a.s.l.), alpine lake situated in the central part of the Pyrenees Ridge (NE Spain) which forms part of the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National park. This emblematic lake of glacial origin is currently fed by snow and meltwater, and presents an outlet which is the headwaters of the Cinca Ri...

La Estiva is a complex karstic depression located near the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park (PNOMP). A comprehensive study of this depression, including the infilling, structure and sediments has been carried out in order to provide new data and complete the paleoenvironmental study of other records in the PNOMP. La Estiva is located at an al...

La Cueva (43º3’N, 6º6’W; 1550 ma.s.l.), is a deep (21 m) glacial lake, located at the central areas of the Cantabrian Range (Saliencia, Asturias). Hematite deposits within Calizas de Alba Fm. (Devonian) have been used for iron mining since the beginning of the 19th century until the late 70s in the Santa Rita Mine, close to the lake. The year 2006...

The Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park and the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (CSIC) recently joined the Spanish LTER network. As part of our strategy to understand recent changes in this protected area, we are carrying out a number of projects to evaluate changes at different spatiotemporal scales, using a variety of methods and approaches. We...

Los espacios protegidos, por el hecho de albergar una gran geo-biodiversidad y asegurar una baja intervención humana, constituyen lugares muy adecuados para el seguimiento de organismos y procesos a escala ecológica, así como para la obtención de series temporales largas a escala geológica. En el marco de la red LTER-España, el Parque Nacional de O...

La Cueva (43º3’N, 6º6’W; 1550 ma.s.l.), is a deep (21 m) glacial lake, located at the central areas of the Cantabrian Range (Saliencia, Asturias). Hematite deposits within Calizas de Alba Fm. (Devonian) have been used for iron mining since the beginning of the 19th century until the late 70s in the Santa Rita Mine, close to the lake. The year 2006...

The lipid content of three cores from Lake Enol (Picos de Europa National Park, Asturias, Northern Spain) was studied. The n-alkane profiles indicated a major input from terrigenous plants [predominance of high molecular weight (HMW) alkanes) since ca. 1695 AD to the water body, although the uppermost cm revealed a predominance of organic matter (O...

Banyoles is the largest and deepest lake of karstic-tectonic origin in the Iberian Peninsula. The lake comprises several circular sub-basins characterized by different oxygenation conditions at their hypolimnions. The multiproxy analysis of a > 5 m long sediment core combined with high resolution seismic stratigraphy (3.5 kHz pinger and multi-frequ...

Se ha estimado la evolución del estado de conservación de varios lugares de interés geológico (LIG): Lagos de Covadonga y Vega de Comeya (Parque Nacional Picos de Europa); Circo o Plana de Marboré (Parque Nacional Ordesa y Monte Perdido) y Lagos glaciares del Pleistoceno de Somiedo (Parque Natural de Somiedo). Todos ellos tienen características sim...

Sediment sequences are the most valuable record of long-term environmental conditions at local, regional and/or global scales. Consequently, they are amongst the best archives of the climatic and oceanographic history of the Earth. In the last few decades a strong effort has been made, both in terms of quantity and quality, to improve our knowledge...

The Gulf of Cadiz displays a number of structures that are associated with fluid circulation (mud volcanoes, mud mounds and pockmarks).This area has been used as natural laboratory for the sedimentological, biological and biogeochemical studies of these environments. Analysis of the associated authigenic carbonates has been widely used as a proxy t...

Although recent studies have revealed more widespread occurrences of magnetofossils in pre-Quaternary sediments than has been previously reported, their significance for paleomagetic and paleoenvironmental studies is not fully understood. We present a paleo- and rock-magnetic study of late Miocene marine sediments recovered from the Guadalquivir Ba...

Palynological, sedimentological and geochemical analyses performed on the Villarquemado paleolake sequence (987 m a.s.l, 40°30′N; 1°18′W) reveal the vegetation dynamics and climate variability in continental Iberia over the last 13,500 cal yr BP. The Lateglacial and early Holocene periods are characterized by arid conditions with a stable landscape...

Molecular simulations were performed to determine the structure and behavior of methane hydrate complexes in the interlayer of Na-rich montmorillonite and beidellite smectite. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations used PT ensembles in a 4 × 4 × 1 supercell comprised of montmorillonite or beidellite with methane hydrate complexes in the interlayer. Th...

The recent increase in anthropogenic CO2 gas released to the atmosphere and its contribution to global warming make necessary to investigate new ways of CO2 storage. Injecting CO2 into subsurface CH4 hydrate reservoirs would displace some of the CH4 in the hydrate crystal lattice, converting simple CH4 hydrates into either simple CO2 hydrates or mi...

Carbonates are the main components of Iberian Quaternary lake sediments. In this review we summarize the main processes controlling carbonate deposition in extant Iberian lakes located in Mesozoic and Tertiary carbonate-dominated regions and formed through karstic activity during the Late Quaternary. The lakes, relatively small (1 ha to 118 ha) and...

The unique geological framework of the “los Llanos de La Larri” (Ordesa-Monte Perdido National Park) facilitated the genesis of a relevant juxtaglacial sedimentary record during the last glacial phase in the central Pyrenees. In this study we conducted a geomorphological and outcrop survey, an electric tomography study and the definition of the mai...

The study of the magnetic properties and their variations with time in lacustrine sediment cores allow deducing paleoenvironmental changes in the last millennia. This study presents a multiproxy approach that integrates geochemical, sedimentological and magnetic properties records from a long core (~6 m) of the Marboré Lake at 2500 m. a.s.l. in the...

The unique geological framework of the “los Llanos de La Larri” (Ordesa-Monte Perdido National Park) facilitated the genesis of a relevant juxtaglacial sedimentary record during the last glacial phase in the central Pyrenees. In this study we conducted a geomorphological and outcrop survey, an electric tomography study and the definition of the mai...

The unique geological framework of the “los Llanos de La Larri” (Ordesa-Monte Perdido National Park) facilitated the genesis of a relevant juxtaglacial sedimentary record during the last glacial phase in the central Pyrenees. In this study we conducted a geomorphological and outcrop survey, an electric tomography study and the definition of the mai...

Clay mineralogy and B isotope data of mud volcano sediments of the Gulf of Cádiz: evidence of interactions of hydrocarbon- rich fluids with clays at depth

Natural gas hydrates (NGH) are crystalline compounds consisting of methane molecules encaged in cavities of a hydrogen-bonded network of water molecules. Gas hydrates have a general formula X?nH2O, where X is the guest molecule within a water cage, and n is the hydration number per guest molecule. The crystal structure sI consists of 46 water molec...

RESUMEN. El estudio de las propiedades magnéticas y sus variaciones en el tiempo en sondeos lacustres permiten deducir cambios paleoambientales de los últimos milenios. Este estudio presenta una aproximación multiproxy integrando indicadores geoquímicos y sedimentológicos con propiedades magnéticas analiza-das en un sondeo largo (~6 m) del Lago de...

RESUMEN. El estudio de las propiedades magnéticas y sus variaciones en el tiempo en sondeos lacustres permiten deducir cambios paleoambientales de los últimos milenios. Este estudio presenta una aproximación multiproxy integrando indicadores geoquímicos y sedimentológicos con propiedades magnéticas analiza-das en un sondeo largo (~6 m) del Lago de...

New and more detailed geomorphological, hydrological, vegetational and climatic reconstructions for the Holocene in the PNOMP have been obtained from the pluridisciplinary study of three records (La Larri, La Estiva and Marboré). La Larri paleolake was originated when the Pineta glacier blocked the valley before 35 ka and existed till 11 ka when it...

El Cañizar de Villarquemado sequence (North-eastern Iberian Peninsula) stands as an exceptional palaeoenvironmental record for the last 130 000 years. The preliminary multidisciplinary study carried out so far include pollen and sedimentological analyses, comprising geochemical, X ray fluorescence (XRF), mineralogical, organic and inorganic content...

The unique geological framework of the "los Llanos de La Larri" (Ordesa-Monte Perdido National Park) facilitated the genesis of a relevant juxtaglacial sedimentary record during the last glacial phase in the central Pyrenees. In this study we conducted a geomorphological and outcrop survey, an electric tomography study and the definition of the mai...

El Cañizar de Villarquemado sequence (North-eastern Iberian Peninsula) stands as an exceptional palaeoenvironmental record for the last 130 000 years. The preliminary multidisciplinary study carried out so far include pollen and sedimentological analyses, comprising geochemical, X ray fluorescence (XRF), mineralogical, organic and inorganic content...

During the MVSEIS-08 cruise of 2008, ten new mud volcanoes (MVs) were discovered on the offshore Moroccan continental margin (Gulf of Cádiz) at water depths between 750 and 1,600 m, using multibeam bathymetry, backscatter imagery, high-resolution seismic and gravity core data. Mud breccias were recovered in all cases, attesting to the nature of ext...

A multi-proxy study of short sediment cores recovered in small, karstic Lake Estanya (42°02′N, 0°32′E, 670 m.a.s.l.) in the Pre-Pyrenean Ranges (NE Spain) provides a detailed record of the complex environmental, hydrological and anthropogenic interactions occurring in the area since medieval times. The integration of sedimentary facies, elemental a...

High-resolution geochemical analysis of a 6-m-long sediment core from Zoñar Lake, southern Spain, provides a detailed characterization of major changes in lake and watershed processes during the last 4,000years. Geochemical variables were used as paleolimnological indicators and complement Zoñar Lakes’s paleoenvironmental reconstruction based on se...

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) climate mode controls, to a large extent, the winter climate of southwestern Europe. The dominant role played by the NAO on climatic and environmental variables has a direct impact on terrestrial ecosystems and in the distribution development and phenology of many species, which could be related to the variabili...

We present the Holocene sequence from Lago Enol (43°16′N, 4°59′W, 1,070m a.s.l.), Cantabrian Mountains, northern Spain. A multiproxy analysis provided comprehensive information about regional humidity and temperature changes. The analysis included sedimentological descriptions, physical properties, organic carbon and carbonate content, mineralogy a...