Cenozoic foreland basin system in the central Andes of northwestern Argentina: Implications for Andean geodynamics and modes of deformation

Abstract

Cenozoic strata in the central Andes of northwestern Argentina record the development and migration of a regional foreland basin system analogous to the modern Chaco‐Paraná alluvial plain. Paleocene‐lower Eocene fluvial and lacustrine deposits are overlain by middle‐upper Eocene hypermature paleosols or an erosional disconformity representing 10–15 Myr. This ‘supersol/disconformity’ zone is traceable over a 200,000 km2 area in the Andean thrust belt, and is overlain by 2–6 km of upward coarsening, eastward thinning, upper Eocene through lower Miocene fluvial and eolian deposits. Middle Miocene‐Pliocene fluvial, lacustrine, and alluvial fan deposits occupy local depocenters with contractional growth structures. Paleocurrent and petrographic data demonstrate westerly provenance of quartzolithic and feldspatholithic sediments. Detrital zircon ages from Cenozoic sandstones cluster at 470–491, 522–544, 555–994, and 1024–1096 Ma. Proterozoic‐Mesozoic clastic and igneous rocks in the Puna and Cordillera Oriental yield similar age clusters, and served as sources of the zircons in the Cenozoic deposits. Arc‐derived zircons become prominent in Oligo‐Miocene deposits and provide new chronostratigraphic constraints. Sediment accumulation rate increased from ∼20 m/Myr during Paleocene‐Eocene time to 200–600 m/Myr during the middle to late Miocene. The new data suggest that a flexural foreland basin formed during Paleocene time and migrated at least 600 km eastward at an unsteady pace dictated by periods of abrupt eastward propagation of the orogenic strain front. Despite differences in deformation style between Bolivia and northwestern Argentina, lithosphere in these two regions flexed similarly in response to eastward encroachment of a comparable orogenic load beginning during late Paleocene time.