Descripción: The Jurassic history of southern South America shows a complex geologic evolution which is the result of different processes that began along the western Gondwana margin during the initial stages of Pangea breakup. Andean subduction along the Pacific continental margin began in the Early Jurassic, after a period of continental-scale extension and rifting, which peaked by the end of the Triassic in central and northern Argentina and Chile. Renewal of subduction was the result of an episode of ocean growth along a series of spreading centers between North and South America when the separation of these continents began as a consequence of the activity of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province hotspot. Motion along these spreading centers produced a component of oblique, SE-directed subduction along the western margin of South America and the reactivation of inherited orthogonal structural features as the N70°E trending Huincul ridge in the Neuquén Basin that was uplifted during Jurassic times. Subduction along the north-south trending Argentine-Chilean continental margin acelerated during the break-up between West and East Gondwana soon after the opening of the Indian Ocean, linked to the Karoo hot-spot. Subduction took place under extensional conditions probably associated with a negative trench roll-back, leading to the formation of a magmatic arc along the Coast Ranges from southern Peru to central Chile and, to the east, the Arequipa, Tarapacá and Neuquén extensional back-arc basins. In northern Patagonia, early Jurassic arc related magmatism occurred to the east of the present day Andean Cordillera along the short-lived (190-170 Ma) Subcordilleran Batholith and the associated Liassic intra arc basin. Arc magmatism ceased in northern Patagonia at ca 170 Ma to be replaced by huge volumes of Early to Middle Jurassic rhyolites and dacites of the Chon-Aike Large Igneous province produced as a result of crustal melting in an overheated crust during the initial stages of Gondwana breakup. Early rifting during Middle-Late Jurassic times took place in the Cañadón Asfalto Basin and the Late Jurassic Río Guenguel, Río Mayo and Río Senguerr basins, orthogonal to the continental margin as a consequence of the Weddell Sea opening. Acid magmatism was associated with widespread extension and culminated in the opening of the ocean-floored Rocas Verdes Basin. The causes of the cessation of magmatism in the Subcordilleran Batholith, the origin of the Chon Aike LIP and the rotation of the magmatic front towards the Patagonian Batholith around 150 Ma are still not well understood. Hypothesis linking this mutating tectonic scenario to the collision of exotic terranes against the Pacific margin of Patagonia during the early to middle Jurassic should be taken into consideration.

Descripción: A major and trace element based characterization of the metasedimentary protoliths of three metamorphic units of Sierra de San Luis (Pringles Metamorphic Complex, San Luis Formation and Conlara Metamorphic Complex) is presented. Geochemistry indicates a dominance of shales in the protoliths of San Luis Formation, whereas greywackes and shales made up the Conlara Metamorphic complex and mainly greywackes, the Pringles Metamorphic Complex. Both major element data and trace element ratios (i.e. Th/Sc, Th/U,) indicate a source with an average upper crustal composition for the protoliths of the Pringles Metamorphic Complex, the San Luis Formation and the shales of the Conlara Metamorphic complex. A component with less evolved signature may be inferred for the metagreywackes of the Conlara metamorphic Complex. Mixed sourced detritus are indicated for the three units with clastic material resulting mainly from both andesitic and acidic/recycled detritus. The overall data consistently suggest a continental island arc and/or active margin setting as the more probable geodynamic scenario for the deposition of the sedimentary precursors of the studied units. In this context, a back-arc setting can account for the mixed nature of the inferred source areas with uplifted old basement and arc-related detritus as the end members of the mixtures. The inferred back-arc basin would have evolved through the Cambrian receiving the sediments derived from the Pampean Orogen to the east combined with probably some old crust exposures and to the west the source might have been controlled by the active continental margin. © 2003 Asociación Geológica Argentina.

Descripción: The Larsen Basin is the depositional area including all the upper Mesozoic-lower Cenozoic sedimentary rocks on the continental shelf of the northern Antarctic Peninsula. The western boundary between the basin fill and the rocks forming its technical basement, is not exposed, and was defined on the basis of aeromagnetic data. On petrological grounds, the Mesozoic marine sedimentary rocks exposed on western Tabarin Peninsula, at the north-eastern extremity of the Antarctic Peninsula, are assigned to the lower part of the Aptian-Eocene regressive megasequence that forms the basin filling. These rocks are faulted against sediments of the Antarctic Peninsula magmatic arc, suggesting that post- depositional tectonic movements probably occurred. This compressional deformation is assigned to mid-Cretaceous times, when the Coniacian partial basin inversion was accompanied by westward-verging deformation at the western basin margin. Although the original extent of the basin cannot be discerned from these data, the lithostratigraphical evidence and geographical position of the basin sediments, together with terrestrial magnetic data, confirm that the Larsen Basin extends onto the southern part of Tabarin Peninsula, and indicate that the western limit of the basin is located northward of the previously proposed limit. © 2004 Asociación Geológica Argentina.