. A chain of east‐west elongated lakes fringes the eastern flank of the Andes Mountains between 39 and 52°S in southern Chile and Argentina. These deep lakes fill valleys left by the retreat of outlet glaciers of the Patagonian Icefield about 16000 years ago. Two of the lakes, Lago General Carrera/Buenos Aires and Lago Cochrane, represent the shrunken remnants of a much larger lake (called here the predecessor lake) that developed in a moat alongside the icefield. A series of seven stepped lacustrine braid deltas on the southeastern shore of Lago General Carrera/Buenos Aires mark the progressive, punctuated drainage of the predecessor lake. The deltas were formed by the build‐out of fans of sand and gravel into the lake. They have the form of Gilbert deltas, with virtually flat subaerial topset beds and steeply inclined subaqueous foreset beds. The exposed delta fronts are marked by a series of small terraces produced by wave erosion during falling lake levels. On either side of the fans are embayments with beaches formed by deposition in the lee of the pro‐grading fans. These embayments are filled with ridges of well‐sorted gravel deposited by wave‐driven long‐shore drift. About 13 000 years ago the regional drainage underwent a remarkable change. Rivers flowing eastwards into the Atlantic reversed their direction to flow westwards through the Andes Mountains and into the Pacific Ocean. The watershed moved some 200 km to the east. The cause of this change, and the falling lake levels, was melting of the Patagonian Icefield. As the ice retreated the icefield split into north and south components. This broke the ice dam that impounded the western end of the predecessor lake. The stepped, progressive fall of the lake level suggests that as the ice melted a series of lower overflow sills of hard rock were exposed. Each of the major episodes of sudden drop in lake level was followed by a long period of up to thousands of years when lake level remained constant. Terraces on the delta fronts indicate that each major episode of fall in the lake level was punctuated by up to ten minor episodes possibly representing major storm events or annual cycles of freezing and melting, blocking the overflow sills.

The Andean orogeny in the Patagonian Cordillera of southern South America reflects the consequences of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic subduction of an oceanic plate beneath the South American continental margin. The geological evolution of the region has been influenced by the Eocene collision and subduction of the Farallon-Aluk Ridge and the Miocene-Recent subduction of the Chile Ridge. Another aspect of plate interaction during this period was two intervals of rapid plate convergence, one at 50-42 Ma, and the other at 25-10 Ma, between the South American and the oceanic plates. It has been proposed that the collision of the Chile Ridge with the trench was responsible for the development, at least in part, of the Patagonian fold and thrust belt. This belt extends for more than 1000 km along the eastern foothills of the southern Andes between 46°and 54°S along the southwestern rim of the Austral Basin. The interpretation of a link between subduction of the ridge and formation of the fold and thrust belt is based on assumed time coincidences between contractional tectonism and the collision of ridge segments during Middle and Late Miocene times. The main Tertiary contractional events in the Patagonian fold and thrust belt took place during latest Cretaceous-Palaeocene-Eocene and during Miocene times. Although the timing of deformation is still poorly constrained, the evidence currently available suggests that there is little or no relationship between the timing of the fold and thrust belt and the collision of ridge segments. Most if not all of the contractional tectonism pre-dated the latest episodes of ridge collision. Collision of a ridge crest with the continental margin has been active for the past 14 to 15 million years. Contrary to the suggestion of a relationship between ridge subduction and compression, the main result of this collision has been fast uplift and extensional tectonism. The initiation of the Patagonian fold and thrust belt in latest Cretaceous or early Tertiary times coincided with a fundamental change in the tectonic evolution of the Austral Basin. Throughout the Cretaceous most of this basin subsided as a broad backarc continental shelf. Only in latest Cretaceous times, and coinciding with the initiation of the fold and thrust belt, the basin underwent a transition to a retro-arc foreland basin. This change to an asymmetrically subsiding foreland basin, with an associated foreland fold and thrust belt, was related to uplift of the Andean orogenic belt in the west. ‡Author for correspondence: msuarez@sernageomin.cl

Abstract-Seismic data across the offshore half of the Chicxulub impact crater reveal a 145 kmdiameter post-impact basin to be a thickening of Tertiary sediment, which thickens by ~0.7 sec from the basin margin to the basin center. The basin existed long after the impact and was gradually infilled to its current flat surface. A suite of seismic horizons within the impact basin have been picked on four reflection lines across the crater. They reveal that the western and northwestern parts of the impact basin were filled first. Subsequently, there was a dramatic change in the depositional environment, indicated by an unconformable surface that can be mapped across the entire basin. A prograding shelf sequence downlaps onto this unconformity in the eastern basin. The seismic stratigraphic relationships suggest a marine regression, with sedimentation becoming gradually more passive as sediments fill the eastern part of the impact basin. The central and northeastern parts of the basin are filled last.The onshore hole Yaxcopoil-1 (Yax-1), which was drilled on the flanks of the southern basin, has been projected onto the offshore seismic data to the west of the crater center. Using dates obtained from this onshore well and regional data, approximate ages have been placed on the most significant horizons in the offshore seismic data. Our preliminary interpretation is that the western and northwestern basins were almost entirely filled by 40 Ma and that the marine regression observed in the eastern basin is early Miocene in age. Offshore seismic stratigraphic analyses and onshore data within Yax-1 suggest that the early Paleocene is highly attenuated across the impact basin. The Mesozoic section appears to be ~1 km thicker offshore than onshore. We calculate that, given this offshore thickening, the volume of Mesozoic rocks that have been excavated, melted, or vaporized during impact is around 15% larger than expected from calculations that assume the offshore thickness is equal to that onshore. This has significant consequences for any environmental calculations. The current offset between the K-T boundary outside and inside the crater is ~700 m. However, infilling of basins with sediments is usually accompanied by subsidence, and immediately following the impact, the difference would have been smaller. We calculate the original topographic offset on the K-T boundary to have been between 450 and 700 m, which is in agreement with depthdiameter scaling laws for a mixed target.

ABSTRACT. Abundant asterozoan trace fossils in the Lower Cretaceous Apeleg Formation of southern Chile were produced by the in®lling of traces made by asteroids and ophiuroids on a muddy surface. Most are preserved as hypichnial ridges formed as casts on the bottom of ®ne-grained sandstone laminae. Star-shaped Asteriacites lumbricalis are interpreted as the in®llings of shallow excavations made by asteroids. Hook-shaped and sinuous ridges of the newly de®ned ichnogenus and ichnospecies Ophioichnus aysenensis are interpreted as the casts of imprints made by the walking action of the arms of ophiuroids. Deposition probably took place in an offshore tideswept marine shelf environment. In life the animals formed an assemblage equivalent to echinoderm aggregations on the modern sea¯oor.

ABSTRACT.A series of Quaternary lacustrine braid deltas on the shores of Lake General Carrera in southern Chile formed as a result of falls in lake level. Each delta comprises two components, the delta fan and the beach embayment, each in turn comprising an onshore subaerial and an offshore subaqueous element. The delta fans have a classic Gilbert form with a braided delta top and a steeply inclined delta front. Adjacent to the fans are concave beach embayments that formed parallel with the deltas as they prograded into the lake. The delta sediments consist predominantly of matrix-and clast-supported gravels to a total composite thickness exceeding 400 m. The depositional environments are dominated by ephemeral river fl ooding and by storm-driven waves. Beach sediment is sorted, rounded, winnowed and transported alongshore by waves to fi ll the beach embayment with ridges of very well sorted and well-rounded gravel. A gentlydipping shoreface platform occurs up to 100 m offshore between the beach and the brink point. From the brink point, in water depth of about 8 m, sediment cascades down the steep delta front slope to form long foresets extending to the lake fl oor. The sedimentary successions therefore wedge in the opposite direction from those of tectonically controlled basin margins where fan growth keeps pace with basin subsidence. RESUMEN. Deltas entrelazados lacustres del Cuaternario en el lago General Carrera, sur de Chile. Una serie de deltas entrelazados lacustres, pertenecientes al Cuaternario, ubicados en las costas del lago General Carrera, en el sur de Chile, se formaron como resultado de caídas en el nivel del lago. Cada delta consta de dos componentes: el abanico deltaico y la zona de embahiamiento. Cada uno de ellos tiene, a su vez, un elemento subaéreo costero y un elemento subacuático. Los abanicos deltaicos tienen una forma Gilbert clásica con una parte superior de ríos entrelazados y un frente deltaico empinado. Adyacente a los abanicos aluviales existen bahías cóncavas de playa que se formaron de manera paralela a los deltas a medida que estos progradaron hacia el lago. Los sedimentos deltaicos consisten predominantemente de gravas matriz y clastosoportadas con un grosor total compuesto que excede los 400 m. Los ambientes depositacionales están dominados por inundaciones efímeras del río y por olas de tormenta. Los sedimentos de playa están seleccionados, redondeados y fueron transportados a lo largo de la costa por las olas para rellenar el embahiamiento de la playa con dorsales de gravas muy bien clasifi cadas y redondeadas. Una plataforma del 'shoreface' de baja pendiente ocurre hasta 100 m agua adentro, entre la orilla y el borde. Desde el borde del lago, en el agua hasta los 8 m de profundidad, el sedimento cae en cascadas por la empinada pendiente del frente deltaico para formar grandes 'foresets' que se extienden hacia el fondo del lago. La sucesión sedimentaria se acuña, en consecuencia, en una dirección opuesta a la de aquella, de márgenes de cuenca controlados tectónicamente ('bri...