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An Upper Mesozoic island-arc–back-arc system in the southern Andes and South Georgia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

M. Suárez  and
T. H. Pettigrew
M. Suárez
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigaciones Geológicas, Casilla 10465 Santiago, Chile. and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, England
T. H. Pettigrew
Affiliation:
British Antarctic Survey, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, England.
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Summary

The Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous strato-tectonic belts of the southern Andes and South Georgia, 2000 km apart, can be correlated and explained as the products of an island-arc–back-arc system. From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, these belts, which exhibit structural and metamorphic differences, are: (1) a pyroclastic belt developed on an ensialic volcanic arc; (2) a back-arc flysch sequence underlain in the southern Andes by a basic complex with oceanic affinities; this was intruded into continental crust as a result of sea-floor spreading which created a marginal basin; (3) a slate sequence deposited on a continental shelf. The pyroclastic and marginal basin belts and the adjacent part of the continental shelf were folded and uplifted during the early Upper Cretaceous, whereas the foreland part of the continental shelf assemblage underwent deformation during the early Tertiary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 113 , Issue 4 , July 1976 , pp. 305 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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