Late Cenozoic Landforms and Landscape Evolution of Península Valdés

Abstract

The present landscape of the Península Valdés is the result of a complex interrelation between climatic (aeolian deposition, windblown processes, glacial and interglacial cycles, pluvial and fluvial processes), tectonic, and eustatic controls that had work in the Andean foreland during the late Cenozoic. Based on a geomorphological approach, which includes new descriptions, interpretations, and hierarchically classification of the main landforms of this region, together with previous geomorphological surveys, the Península Valdés area was grouped in three major geomorphologic systems: Uplands and Plains, Great Endorheic Basins, and Coastal Zone. Based on the interrelationship among these three geomorphological systems the landscape evolution of the late Cenozoic of Península Valdés could be summarized in five main stages: (1) development of fluvial and alluvial systems during the Pliocene early Pleistocene; (2) closed basin formation associated to tectonicprocesses during the early middle Plesitocene; (3) first marine transgressions during the late Pleistocene; (4) flooding of the gulfs and construction of the peninsula in the late Plesitocene-Holocene; (5) final flooding in the region during the middle Holocene.