Cenozoic Uplift and Exhumation of the Frontal Cordillera between 30° and 35°S and the Influence of the Subduction Dynamics in the Flat Slab Subduction 5 Context, South Central Andes

Abstract

This review explores the timing of uplift and exhumation of the Frontal Cordillerarange in the South Central Andes between 30° and 35°S summing up the available publishedevidence up to present. In this segment of the Andes, the Frontal Cordillera straddles a transitionfrom the Chilean-Pampean flat slab segment to a normal subduction segment, and exhibitsremarkable along-strike variations in the amount of horizontal shortening, onset of Miocenedeformation and orogenic width, while mean elevations remain steady. None of these variationsseems to correspond, in time or space, to the shift in the subduction dynamics; instead wepropose that they represent the expression of inherited features in the continental crust such asthe presence of post-Triassic basins or paleo-relief.