The Oxaya anticline (northern Chile): a buckle enhanced by river incision?

A prominent structure in the Western Escarpment of the Andes of northern Chile is the Oxaya anticline, dissected at the culmination by >1500 m deep valleys. The distribution of fault and fold structures indicates that the anticline could represent a simple buckle. Buckling thus appears to have ac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Terra nova (Oxford, England) England), 2005-08, Vol.17 (4), p.368-375
Main Authors: Zeilinger, Gerold, Schlunegger, Fritz, Simpson, Guy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Freshwater
Geology
Plate tectonics
Rivers
Valleys
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Summary:A prominent structure in the Western Escarpment of the Andes of northern Chile is the Oxaya anticline, dissected at the culmination by >1500 m deep valleys. The distribution of fault and fold structures indicates that the anticline could represent a simple buckle. Buckling thus appears to have accommodated crustal shortening in the plate overriding the subducting plate, between the trench and the Western Cordillera. Cross‐cutting relationships between structures and dated strata indicated that the time interval of enhanced buckling coincides with the period when rates of valley formation were enhanced. We thus propose that the formation of this anticline was enhanced by fluvial incision, which is consistent with the results of published theoretical models.
ISSN:0954-4879
1365-3121
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-3121.2005.00622.x