This study investigates the Late Aptian–earliest Albian platform carbonates of the Benicàssim area (Maestrat Basin, Spain) in order to assess the relationship between bed-parallel stylolites and the flow of diagenetic fluids during dolomitization and subsequent hydrothermal alteration. Dolostones and burial dolomite and calcite cements were studied by a combination of field geology and standard petrographic and isotope analysis. Field data indicate that dolostones are closely associated with seismic-scale synsedimentary faults, preferentially replace grain-dominated facies and typically show wavy dolomitizing fronts that mostly correspond to bed-parallel stylolites. The dolostones are corroded and contain bed-parallel pores that are filled with hydrothermal saddle dolomite and blocky calcite cements. This late calcite cement frequently engulfs clasts of the host dolostones, suggesting that hydraulic brecciation likely associated with overpressured fluid occurred. Results indicate that stylolites play a key role in the distribution of dolostones and subsequent hydrothermal mineralization. During the replacement stage, stylolites acted as baffles for the dolomitzing fluids controlling lateral fluid flow and resulting in the stratabound dolostone distribution. During the post-dolomitization stage, stylolites became preferred pathways for overpressured hydrothermal corrosive and mineralizing fluids that likely came from the underlying basement, and increased bed-parallel stylolitic porosity and probably also permeability.

The Eocene clastic systems of the Jaca foreland Basin (southern Pyrenees) allow us to identify changes in sediment composition through time. We provide new data on sediment composition and sources of the northern Jaca basin, whose stratigraphic evolution from Middle Lutetian deep-marine to Priabonian alluvial systems record a main reorganization in the active Pyrenean prowedge. Petrological analysis shows that the Banastón and the Lower Jaca turbidite systems (Middle–Upper Lutetian) were fed from an eastern source, which dominated during the sedimentation of the Hecho Group turbidites. In contrast, the upper part of the Jaca turbidite systems (Lutetian–Bartonian transition) records an increase in the number of subvolcanic rock and hybrid-sandstone fragments (intrabasinal and extrabasinal grains) being the first system clearly fed from the north. This change is interpreted as associated with an uplifting of the Eaux-Chaudes/Lakora thrust sheet in the northern Axial Zone. The Middle Bartonian Sabiñánigo sandstone derives from eastern and northeastern source areas. In contrast, the overlying Late Bartonian–Early Priabonian Atarés delta records sediment input from the east. The Santa Orosia alluvial system records a new distinct compositional change, with a very high content of hybrid-sandstone clasts from the Hecho Group, again from a northern provenance. Such cannibalized clasts were sourced from newly emerged areas of the hinterland, associated with the basement-involved Gavarnie thrust activity in the Axial Zone.