Climatic, Tectonic, Eustatic, and Volcanic Controls on the Stratigraphic Record of Península Valdés

Abstract

The Península Valdés region is situated in an intraplate position of the South American Plate, in the Patagonian foreland close to the Argentine Continental shelf. This region has a complex geotectonic evolution that started more than 400 Ma and involves the conformation of Northern Patagonia as a part of Gondwana during the Paleozoic, the opening of the Atlantic Ocean during the Mesozoic and the configuration of the Andean margin during the Cenozoic. At different scales, the interplay between climate, tectonic, sea-level, and volcanic processes, set the sedimentary routing system that had governed the final geologic records of the Península Valdés region and control the transfer of terrigenous sediments from source to sink. The stratigraphic record of the region was not only influenced by local factors. Processes developed far away from Península Valdés, both in the Southern Andes or in the continental shelf had influenced the late Cenozoic record of this region.