Nueva interpretación de la geología de la mina romana de Las Médulas. El Bierzo, León

Abstract

In the Las Médulas site, red tertiary facies were exploited for gold during roman times. That facies, mainly composed by conglomerates and sandy silts have been interpreted as the final phase of infilling of an endorreic, tectonically controlled basin. However, a careful study of the geometry and organisation of the different units points out a new interpretation: that the serie was the consequence of the evolution of a fluvial system which progressively entrenched, resulting in a sequence of at least seven levels of terraces, where erosive phases alternating with aggradational periods can be distinguished