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Tectonics Associated with the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene Units of the High Andes (Cura-Mallín Formation). A Review of the Geochronological, Thermochronological, and Geochemical Data

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Opening and Closure of the Neuquén Basin in the Southern Andes

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Abstract

The tectonic regime associated with the Oligo-Miocene Cura-Mallín Formation and equivalents in the Main Andean Cordillera between 35° and 40° S, the Ventana and Abanico formations to the south and north, respectively, is still matter of debate. While most authors have agreed in relating them to an extensional regime that could have interrupted Andean orogenesis, others have provided evidence of coexistence with an ongoing compressional regime at least for the upper part of their record. Available geochronological, structural, geochemical, thermochronological, and basin subsidence data between 33° and 43° S are compiled and analyzed in this chapter in order to provide a tectonic framework for these rocks. Based on this analysis, two different mechanisms seem to have succeeded through the accumulation of these sequences, a late Oligocene to earliest Miocene period characterized by syn-extensional deposits in an attenuated crust evidenced by low La/Yb ratios in contemporaneous magmatism, and a younger time period in the mid- to late Miocene that coincides with regional exhumation and compression revealed by thermochronological data and syncontractional sedimentation.

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Acknowledgement

This study has been funded by PICT-2016-12252, FONDECYT Project 1151146, PIP 11220150100426 and UBACYT 20020150100166BA. This is the R-315 contribution of the Instituto de Estudios Andinos “Don Pablo Groeber”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Departamento de Ciencias Geologicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Eduardo Agustín Rosselot, María Hurley, Lucía Sagripanti, Lucas Fennell, Sofía B. Iannelli, Vanesa D. Litvak & Andrés Folguera

  2. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Estudios Andinos “Don Pablo Groeber” (IDEAN), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Eduardo Agustín Rosselot, María Hurley, Lucía Sagripanti, Lucas Fennell, Sofía B. Iannelli, Vanesa D. Litvak & Andrés Folguera

  3. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Pcia de Río Negro, Argentina

    Darío Orts

  4. Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

    Alfonso Encinas

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  1. Eduardo Agustín Rosselot
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  2. María Hurley
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  3. Lucía Sagripanti
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  5. Sofía B. Iannelli
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  9. Andrés Folguera
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Correspondence to Eduardo Agustín Rosselot .

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  1. IGeBA - UBA, CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Diego Kietzmann

  2. Instituto de Estudions Andinos - UBA CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Andrés Folguera

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Rosselot, E.A. et al. (2020). Tectonics Associated with the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene Units of the High Andes (Cura-Mallín Formation). A Review of the Geochronological, Thermochronological, and Geochemical Data. In: Kietzmann, D., Folguera, A. (eds) Opening and Closure of the Neuquén Basin in the Southern Andes. Springer Earth System Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29680-3_18

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