The arid Puna plateau of the southern Central Andes is characterized by Cenozoic distributed shortening forming intramontane basins that are disconnected from the humid foreland because of the defeat of orogen‐traversing channels. Thick Tertiary and Quaternary sedimentary fills in Puna basins have reduced topographic contrasts between the compressional basins and ranges, leading to a typical low‐relief plateau morphology. Structurally identical basins that are still externally drained straddle the eastern border of the Puna and document the eastward propagation of orographic barriers and ensuing aridification. One of them, the Angastaco basin, is transitional between the highly compartmentalized Puna highlands and the undeformed Andean foreland. Sandstone petrography, structural and stratigraphic analysis, combined with detrital apatite fission‐track thermochronology from a ∼6200‐m‐thick Miocene to Pliocene stratigraphic section in the Angastaco basin, document the late Eocene to late Pliocene exhumation history of source regions along the eastern border of the Puna (Eastern Cordillera (EC)) as well as the construction of orographic barriers along the southeastern flank of the Central Andes.
Onset of exhumation of a source in the EC in late Eocene time as well as a rapid exhumation of the Sierra de Luracatao (in the EC) at about 20 Ma are recorded in the detrital sediments of the Angastaco basin. Sediment accumulation in the basin began ∼15 Ma, a time at which the EC had already built sufficient topography to prevent Puna sourced detritus from reaching the basin. After ∼13 Ma, shortening shifted eastward, exhuming ranges that preserve an apatite fission‐track partial annealing zone recording cooling during the late Cretaceous rifting event. Facies changes and fossil content suggest that after 9 Ma, the EC constituted an effective orographic barrier that prevented moisture penetration into the plateau. Between 3.4 and 2.4 Ma, another orographic barrier was uplifted to the east, leading to further aridification and pronounced precipitation gradients along the mountain front. This study emphasizes the important role of tectonics in the evolution of climate in this part of the Andes.
For the Puna Plateau and Eastern Cordillera of NW Argentina, the temporal and spatial pattern of deformation and surface uplift remain poorly constrained. Analysis of completely and partially reset apatite fission track samples collected from vertical profiles along an ESE trending transect extending from the plateau interior across the southern Eastern Cordillera at ∼25°S reveals important constraints on the deformation and exhumation history of this part of the Andes. The data constrain the Neogene Andean development of the Eastern Cordillera as well as rift‐related exhumation for some of the sampled locations in the Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous. An intervening Eocene‐Oligocene exhumation episode in the southern Eastern Cordillera was probably related to crustal shortening. Subsequent reburial of the area by Andean foreland basin strata commenced between 30 and 25 Myr. Magnitude and duration of sedimentation, revealed by thermal modeling, differ between the sample locations, pointing to an eastward propagating basin system. In the southern Eastern Cordillera, Andean deformation commenced at 22.5–21 Myr, predating both the inferred formation of significant topography by 5–7.5 Myr and preservation of sediments in the adjacent Cenozoic basins by 6.5–8 Myr. Comparing the calculated structural depth of partially reset samples suggests that newly formed west dipping reverse faults along the former Salta Rift margin accommodated most of the Neogene tectonic movement. Late Cenozoic deformation at the southern Eastern Cordillera began earlier in the west and subsequently propagated eastward. The lateral growth of the orogen is coupled with a foreland basin system developing in front of the range and then becomes subsequently compartmentalized by later emergent topography.
The Andean Plateau of north‐western Argentina (Puna) at a mean elevation of ca. 4.2 km constitutes the southern continuation of the Altiplano; it is a compressional basin‐and‐range province comprising fault‐bounded, high‐elevation mountain ranges and largely internally drained basins with often thick sedimentary and volcaniclastic fill. Growing sedimentological and structural evidence supports the notion that the north‐western Argentine Andes between 22° and 26°S developed from an initial extensive broken‐foreland system that extended across the present‐day eastern Andean flank during the early to middle Eocene. However, compelling evidence of the tectonic history of this region is still missing. Here, we present new apatite fission track and zircon (U–Th)/He thermochronological data and U–Pb zircon ages from intercalated volcanic ash deposits from the Pastos Chicos Basin (23.5°S, 66.5°W) to constrain basin formation and the timing of major crustal deformation in the northern Puna. Inverse thermal modeling of the thermochronological data provides further temporal constraints on the late Cenozoic cooling history of the crust in this region and, by inference, on the timing of upper‐crustal shortening, range uplift, and basin formation in the northern sector of the present‐day Puna Plateau. Specifically, we argue for plateau‐wide distributed deformation in the Eocene between 23° and 24°S, followed by spatially disparate and diachronous deformation (Oligocene to Pliocene).
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