Pre-Carboniferous Evolution of the San Rafael Block, Argentina. Implications in the SW Gondwana Margin: An Introduction

Abstract

The San Rafael Block as part of the Cuyania terrane, lies eastwards of the present-day Andean Cordillera in Mendoza province and it develops south of the Nazca flat-slab subduction zone. It is a geographical region constituted by a set of rather convex elevation oriented NW–SE from Sierra de las Peñas to Cerro Nevado as the eastern Neogene volcanic arc and ending at the transitional zone known as the La Escondida mining district; as a geological province was also cited as ‘Sierra Pintada’. The knowledge about this geological region started on 1891 and was continued during the twentieth century with intense regional mapping projects carried out by different Argentine institutions through which the geological background was founded. This book is dedicated to the tectonic evolution of the pre-Carboniferous units and was organized by chronological stages, in order to know the implications in the proto-Andean SW Gondwana margin, as follows: The Mesoproterozoic basement of Laurentian affinity; tectonic extension, passive margin and Cuyania terrane collisional event during the Lower Paleozoic; Silurian-Lower Devonian orogenic sedimentation, Chanic compressional phase during the Chilenia terrane accretion in the Upper Devonian-Lower Carboniferous and finally the tectonic evolution synthesis. An updated geological map compilation is also subdivided in three regions: Sierra de las Peñas, Sierra Pintada-Cerro Nevado and La Escondida transitional zone.