The lack of correlation between flat slabs and bathymetric impactors in South America

Influence of subduction history on South American topography

“…4, in which only long-term sea level changes are considered, illustrate that the shallow-water deposits inland of the Rio de la Plata and inland of the Colorado Basin, present in both sets of global paleoshorelines between 21 Ma and 10 Ma, occur primarily as a consequence of long-term sea level change. (Wesselingh et al, 2010), magenta (Smith et al, 2004), and dark green (Golonka, 2009). Other lines are as in Fig.…”

“…We therefore limit its interpretation to a visual comparison in Fig. 4 with two global sets of paleoshorelines (Smith et al, 2004;Golonka, 2009) and a more detailed set of paleoshorelines for northern South America (Wesselingh et al, 2010). The left-handside panels of Fig.…”

Seismic properties of the Nazca oceanic crust in southern Peruvian subduction system

“…1b; Bilek, 2010, and references therein). The significant rupture propagation and moment release to the south, away from the Nazca Ridge (Swenson and Beck, 1996), was found. The 2001 event (Mw = 8.4; Bilek, 2010, and references therein) is notable because of the suggestion of a barrier during rupture (Robinson et al, 2006).…”

Physiographic and tectonic settings of high-sulfidation epithermal gold–silver deposits of the Andes and their controls on mineralizing processes

“…The Andean segment extending from~15°Lat S in Peru, to 2°Lat S in southern Ecuador, lacks recent arc volcanism, which, as in Chile, has been attributed to flat-slab subduction spatially coinciding with subduction of aseismic ridges and oceanic plateaus (e.g., Gutscher et al, 1999a;Martinod et al, 2010;Skinner and Clayton, 2013). The high-sulfidation epithermal deposits of this region occur in two distinct belts (Noble and McKee, 1999).…”

“…Gutscher et al, 1999b;Yañez et al, 2001). However the causative relationship between ridge impingement and onset of flat subduction remains a matter of debate (Skinner and Clayton, 2013). Thus, crustal shortening, uplift and porphyry Cu mineralization pre-dates the arrival of the subducting aseismic Juan Fernández ridge in Central Chile (Deckart et al, 2013), a situation comparable to northern Peru where high-sulfidation epithermal gold mineralization at Lagunas Norte occurred at 17 Ma, coincident with uplift, but several Ma prior to the inferred onset of Nazca ridge subduction (Montgomery, 2012, see below).…”