Tectonic mode switches in the Pyrenees caused by Africa-Eurasia rotation pole drift

Motions of lithospheric plates and the tectonic mode of their plate boundaries are considered stable between abrupt major reorganizations. However, recent geodynamic models identified subtle effects on plate motion, for instance mantle-plume-induced that, if kinematically corroborated, offer novel insights into mantle dynamics. Here, we show that the drift of the Africa-Eurasia rotation pole in the Cretaceous correlates with tectonic mode switches, from divergence and convergence and back, in the Pyrenees. We use recent marine magnetic constraints from the Cretaceous Central Atlantic Ocean floor to demonstrate that Africa-Eurasia motion in the Pyrenean realm was divergent (until ~121 Ma), convergent (121-108 Ma), divergent again (108-92 Ma) and convergent again (since 92 Ma). This coincides with phases of Iberian microplate breakup, rotation and subduction, North Pyrenean Basin extension, and Pyrenean collisional orogeny, respectively. The pole drift phases explain Cretaceous Pyrenean mantle rock exhumation as eduction of a previously subducted, Jurassic Iberian hyperextended margin. Vice versa, the tectonic mode shifts offer novel insights into the dynamic response of the African Plate to south Atlantic rift-to-drift, Indian Ocean plume rise, and a Neotethyan Ocean same-dip, double subduction episode. Integrated plate kinematic and orogen-scale tectonic analysis thus aid interpreting geological records and geodynamic drivers alike.