Chapter 9

Abstract

The continental basement, east of the Otú-Pericos Fault, is made up of two sectors with different geological histories. The western sector, comprised of Payandé, and Payandé San Lucas blocks, are considered here as a part of the autochthonous basement of South America. The autochthonous basement is composed of high-grade metamorphic rocks with Grenvillian and Amazonian ages. The basal sedimentary cover includes marine deposits that span from Ediacaran to Ordovician in the Llanos Basin, and from the Ordovician, in the La Macarena and Magdalena Valley. The Eastern Cordillera consists of an allochthonous tectonic block (Quetame-Mérida Terrane) where several phases of metamorphism are identified. The Bucaramanga Gneiss and Silgará Schists (sensu stricto) were formed during the Precambrian. The Chicamocha Schists originated from a sedimentary protolith of Cambrian age. The identification of bioturbation in metamorphic rocks of the Quetame Massif confirms the existence of Phanerozoic rocks in the area. In the Eastern Cordillera, an Ordovician magmatic phase associated with the Famatinian Orogeny (Taconic) is recognized. Orogenic metamorphism and its termination are associated with the collision of the Quetame-Mérida Terrane against the pericratonic margin of South America. An erosive phase at the end of the Ordovician and the beginning of the Silurian separated a brief marine incursion during the Ludlow. In northern South America, Devonian sedimentation spans from the Emsian to the ends of the Famennian. The Devonian marine fauna is similar to the marine fauna of eastern North America. The flora tends to be cosmopolitan (several species of Archaeopteris) with elements common to Laurussia. However, fossil fish show elements of both Gondwana and Laurussia. The Carboniferous series is extended from the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta to the south of Colombia. The fossils indicate that the sedimentation, limestones and mudstones of the shallow marine platform, spans from the Bashkirian to the Moscovian. The Permian sedimentation starts with basal conglomerates and continues with platform limestone deposits. The fossils indicate a range of sedimentation that spans from the Cisuralian to the Guadalupian. A tectonic phase (the assemblage of the Pangea) creates the hiatus between the late Permian (Lopingian) and the Middle Triassic. This phase results in magmatic activity and metasomatism in the Magdalena Valley (Payandé and Payandé-San Lucas).

Volume 1

“…Chapter 9 contains a review of the stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and geochronology of the Paleozoic rocks of Colombia. Moreno-Sánchez et al (2020) proposed a relationship between the Paleozoic units and the underlying basement and reconstructed the geological history and paleogeography of the Colombian territory during the Paleozoic.…”

Presentation

“…Chapter 9 contains a review of the stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and geochronology of the Paleozoic rocks of Colombia. Moreno-Sánchez et al (2020) proposed a relationship between the Paleozoic units and the underlying basement and reconstructed the geological history and paleogeography of the Colombian territory during the Paleozoic.…”