Major unconformities of the Neogene sedimentary record in the Alboran Basin, representing common events in basin evolution, were evidenced offshore and onshore.
Results from commercial and scientific drilling indicate that sedimentary sequences from the Alboran Sea basin have their counterparts in marine deposits cropping out in the Betic Neogene Basins.
Several hiatuses were detected in the upper Neogene sedimentary record. The upper Miocene section began with an important hiatus in the marine basinal deposition, coincident with the NN9 calcareous nannoplankton zone in the lower Tortonian. Another lower Pliocene hiatus coincides with NN13 and parts of the NN12 and NN14 nannoplankton zones.
Backstripping analysis shows several periods of subsidence that could be correlated with two rifting events in the middle Miocene (15.5-14.5 and 13-10.7 Ma) and with Pliocene-Pleistocene subsidence (2.5-0 Ma) in the Alboran Basin. A sudden period of uplift at the Tortonian/Messinian boundary is related to north-south compression during the late Tortonian, and is also correlated with the continentalization of the Granada Basin. Subsidence during the Pliocene differs in all of the wells studied, which indicates local and coeval uplift probably because of local tectonic processes.