The basin is divided into the following members: • At the bottom of the image, the house is constructed on the steep yellow cliffs of the resistant
Azagador Member. • The lower (whiter) and upper (yellower)
Abad Marls, a Tortonian/
Messinian series of
turbidites featuring pronounced
Milankovic (20,000 year precession) cyclicity, allowing
chronostratigraphic dating; these fine muds are easily eroded. • When the sea returned overdeepening the basin, salt water waterfalls eroded a 200 m depression patterned by 30 m deep
gullies. • the Messinian
Yesares Member, a
gypsum evaporite, forms the steep bluffs at the top of the valley; there is some debate about how conformable its contact with the Abad marls is. •
Pliocene deposits, rest
unconformably on the top. • Complexity of drawdown and reflooding complicate correlation of the ‘Salinity Crisis' stratigraphy. == Basin significance ==