TOMO 1 - Análisis de Cuencas EVOLUTION OF THE ALTIPLANO BASIN (EOCENE TO MIOCENE). Dorothee Mertmann, Ekkehard Scheuber, Patricio Silva-González, Harald Ege, Klaus-J. Reutter FR Geologie, Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften, FU Berlin, Malteserstr. 74-100, D- 12249 Berlin
[email protected] The Altiplano is part of the Altiplano-Puna Plateau which, at an average height of 3.7 km (Isacks 1988), extends east of the Western Cordillera, the active volcanic front of the Central Andean Volcanic Zone. The formation of the Andean plateau was linked with the formation of the Altiplano Basin, which reflects major changes in the deformational pattern, magmatism, and the related sedimentary record. Thermochronological (apatite fission track, AFT) and sedimentological data from the central Andean high plateau are relevant to the evolution of the Andean active margin during the Tertiary. The intramontaneous Altiplano Basin covers an area of approximately 110,000 km2. Its main structural elements are the NNE trending Uyuni-Khenayani fault zone (UKFZ) in the center and the N-S to NW-SE trending San-Vicente fault system (SVFS) along the eastern borde. The UKFZ, which is marked morphologically by elongate, N-S to NNE-SSW trending ridges consisting mainly of Ordovician to Silurian sediments, shows dextral transpressional kinematics with thrusting toward E and dextral strike-slip displacements. W of the UKFZ a belt of mainly west-vergent folds and thrusts is developed. To the west these structures are covered by the late Miocene-Quaternary volcanics of the Western Cordillera and exposures of folded older strata. Along the SVFS the Ordovician strata of the Eastern Cordillera were thrust towards W onto Paleogene strata of the Altiplano in early Miocene times (Müller et al.