| Geology of the Andes |
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| Orogenies |
| Fold-thrust belts |
| Batholiths |
| Subducted structures |
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| Faults |
| Andean Volcanic Belt |
| Pampean flat-slab |
| Terranes |
Chilenia was an ancient microcontinent or terrane whose history affected many of the older rocks of central Chile and western Argentina. It was once separated by oceanic crust from the Cuyania terrane to which it accreted at ~420-390 Ma when Cuyania was already amalgamated with Gondwana. [1]
Laurasia was the more northern of two large landmasses that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from around 335 to 175 million years ago (Mya), the other being Gondwana. It separated from Gondwana 215 to 175 Mya during the breakup of Pangaea, drifting farther north after the split and finally broke apart with the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean c. 56 Mya. The name is a portmanteau of Laurentia and Asia.
Avalonia was a microcontinent in the Paleozoic era. Crustal fragments of this former microcontinent underlie south-west Great Britain, southern Ireland, and the eastern coast of North America. It is the source of many of the older rocks of Western Europe, Atlantic Canada, and parts of the coastal United States. Avalonia is named for the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland.
The Taconic orogeny was a mountain building period that ended 440 million years ago and affected most of modern-day New England. A great mountain chain formed from eastern Canada down through what is now the Piedmont of the East coast of the United States. As the mountain chain eroded in the Silurian and Devonian periods, sediments from the mountain chain spread throughout the present-day Appalachians and midcontinental North America.
The Paleo-Tethys or Palaeo-Tethys Ocean was an ocean located along the northern margin of the paleocontinent Gondwana that started to open during the Middle Cambrian, grew throughout the Paleozoic, and finally closed during the Late Triassic; existing for about 400 million years.
The Amazonian Craton is a geologic province located in South America. It occupies a large portion of the central, north and eastern part of the continent and represents one of Earth's largest cratonic regions. The Guiana Shield and Central Brazil Shield constitute respectively the northern and southern exhumed parts of the craton. Between the two shields lies the Amazon Rift, a zone of weakness within the craton. Smaller cratons of Precambrian rocks south of the Amazonian Shield are the Río de la Plata Craton and the São Francisco Craton, which lies to the east.
The Rio de la Plata Craton (RPC) is a medium-sized continental block found in Uruguay, eastern Argentina and southern Brazil. During its complex and protracted history it interacted with a series other blocks and is therefore considered important for the understanding of the amalgamation of West Gondwana. Two orogenic cycles have been identified in the RPC: a 2000 Ma-old western domain representing the old craton and a 700–500 Ma-old eastern domain assigned to the Brasiliano Cycle. It is one of the five cratons of the South American continent. The other four cratons are: Amazonia, São Francisco, Río Apa and Arequipa–Antofalla.
Gondwana was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. It was formed by the accretion of several cratons, beginning c. 800 to 650Ma with the East African Orogeny, the collision of India and Madagascar with East Africa, and culminating in c. 600 to 530 Ma with the overlapping Brasiliano and Kuunga orogenies, the collision of South America with Africa, and the addition of Australia and Antarctica, respectively. Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Palaeozoic Era, covering an area of some 100,000,000 km2 (39,000,000 sq mi), about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. It fused with Euramerica during the Carboniferous to form Pangea. It began to separate from northern Pangea (Laurasia) during the Triassic, and started to fragment during the Early Jurassic. The final stages of break-up, involving the separation of Antarctica from South America and Australia, occurred during the Paleogene (from around 66 to 23 million years ago. Gondwana was not considered a supercontinent by the earliest definition, since the landmasses of Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia were separated from it. To differentiate it from the Indian region of the same name, it is also commonly called Gondwanaland.
Kazakhstania, the Kazakh terranes, or the Kazakhstan Block, is a geological region in Central Asia which consists of the area roughly centered on Lake Balkhash, north and east of the Aral Sea, south of the Siberian craton and west of the Altai Mountains. The Junggar basin in Xinjiang, China, is also part of Kazakhstania, though sometimes referred to as the Junggar Block. Because the Kazakh terranes merged during the Late Ordovician as part of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt they are also referred to as the Kazakh Orogen. These terranes are located in what is today Kazakhstan, north-eastern Uzbekistan, northern Kyrgyzstan and south-western China. Today Kazakhstania is surrounded by three large, former continents: to the north-east the Gornostaev Shear Zone separates it from Siberia with which it collided during the Carboniferous; to the north-west is Baltica which lay adjacent to the Kazakh Tourgai terrane but far away from Kazakhstania; to the south and east was Gondwana stretching from the South Pole to the Equator. Not far away from the dispersed Kazakh terranes were South China, North China, and Tarim, but how these continental blocks were positioned relative to Gondwana is not known.
The Precordillera Terrane or Cuyania was an ancient microcontinent or terrane whose history affected many of the older rocks of Cuyo in Argentina. It was separated by oceanic crust from the Chilenia terrane which accreted into it at ~420-390 Ma when Cuyania was already amalgamated with Gondwana. The hypothesized Mejillonia Terrane in the coast of northern Chile is considered by some geologists to be a single block with Cuyania.
The Carolina Terrane, also called the Carolina Superterrane or Carolinia, is an exotic terrane running ~370 miles (600 km) approximately North-South from central Georgia to central Virginia in the United States. It constitutes a major part of the eastern Piedmont Province.
Pampia was an ancient microcontinent or terrane that collided with Río de la Plata Craton and Río Apas Craton during the Pampean orogeny of late Proterozoic and early Cambrian. It was one of the first terranes to be amalgamated to the old cratons of the east, and was followed by the suturing of Cuyania and Chilenia terranes into the young South American Plate.
Arequipa-Antofalla is a basement unit underlying the central Andes in northwestern Argentina, western Bolivia, northern Chile and southern Peru. Geologically, it corresponds to a craton, terrane or block of continental crust. Arequipa-Antofalla collided and amalgamated with the Amazonian craton about 1000 Ma ago during the Sunsás orogeny. As a terrane Arequipa-Antofalla was ribbon-shaped during the Paleozoic, a time when it was bounded by the west by the Iapetus Ocean and by the east by the Puncoviscana Ocean.
The Famatinian orogeny is an orogeny that predates the rise of the Andes and that took place in what is now western South America during the Paleozoic, leading to the formation of the Famatinian orogen also known as the Famatinian belt. The Famatinian orogeny lasted from the Late Cambrian to at least the Late Devonian and possibly the Early Carboniferous, with orogenic activity peaking about 490 to 460 million years ago. The orogeny involved metamorphism and deformation in the crust and the eruption and intrusion of magma along a Famatinian magmatic arc that formed a chain of volcanoes. The igneous rocks of the Famatinian magmatic arc are of calc-alkaline character and include gabbros, tonalites, granodiorites and trondhjemites. The youngest igneous rocks of the arc are granites.
The Pampean orogeny was an orogeny active in the Cambrian in the western margin of the ancient landmass of Gondwana. The orogen's remains can now be observed in central Argentina, in particular at the Sierras de Córdoba and other parts of the eastern Sierras Pampeanas. It is uncertain if the orogeny involved at some point a continental collision. The Pampean orogen can be considered both part of the larger Terra Australis orogen and of the Brasiliano orogeny. The Pampean orogeny was succeeded by the Famatinian orogeny further west.
Puncoviscana Formation is a formation of sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks Late Ediacaran and Lower Cambrian age, estimated at between 700 and 535 Ma, that crop out in the Argentine Northwest. Most of the formation lies in Jujuy, Salta and Tucumán Province albeit some authors extend the formation further south to the Sierras Pampeanas near Córdoba.
Paracordylodus is an extinct genus of conodonts in the clade Prioniodontida, also known as the "complex conodonts". The species P. gracilis has been recovered from the chert of the Narooma Terrane, a geological structural region on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.
The Precordillera terrane of western Argentina is a large mountain range located southeast of the main Andes mountain range. The evolution of the Precordillera is noted for its unique formation history compared to the region nearby. The Cambrian-Ordovian sedimentology in the Precordillera terrane has its source neither from old Andes nor nearby country rock, but shares similar characteristics with the Grenville orogeny of eastern North America. This indicates a rift-drift history of the Precordillera in the early Paleozoic. The Precordillera is a moving micro-continent which started from the southeast part of the ancient continent Laurentia. The separation of the Precordillera started around the early Cambrian. The mass collided with Gondwana around Late Ordovician period. Different models and thinking of rift-drift process and the time of occurrence have been proposed. This page focuses on the evidence of drifting found in the stratigraphical record of the Precordillera, as well as exhibiting models of how the Precordillera drifted to Gondwana.
Patagonia comprises the southernmost region of South America, portions of which lie on either side of the Argentina-Chile border. It has traditionally been described as the region south of the Rio Colorado, although the physiographic border has more recently been moved southward to the Huincul fault. The region's geologic border to the north is composed of the Rio de la Plata craton and several accreted terranes comprising the La Pampa province. The underlying basement rocks of the Patagonian region can be subdivided into two large massifs: the North Patagonian Massif and the Deseado Massif. These massifs are surrounded by sedimentary basins formed in the Mesozoic that underwent subsequent deformation during the Andean orogeny. Patagonia is known for its vast earthquakes and the damage they cause.
The geology of Ecuador includes ancient Precambrian basement rock and a complex tectonic assembly of new sections of crust from formerly separate landmasses, often uplifted as the Andes or transformed into basins.
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