Andean foreland basins

The Andean foreland basins or Sub-Andean basins are a group of foreland basin located in the western half of South America immediately east of the Andes mountains. The Andean foreland basins in the Amazon Rivers catchment area are known as the Amazonian foreland basins.^[1]

In part sediment accumulation, uplift and subsidence of the Andean foreland basins is controlled by transverse zones of "structural accommodation", likely corresponding to ancient continent-wide faults. From the Bolivian Orocline (20° S, also known as Arica Deflection or Arica Elbow) north these zones of accommodation runs with a NEE-SWW orientation and south of the orocline they run with a NW-SE orientation.^[2] The Andean foreland basins in Bolivia have largely accumulated continental sediments, most of them of clastic nature.^[3]

Beginning in 1920 the Ecuadorian and Peruvian basins were explored for petroleum and in the 1970s their hydrocarbon production increased greatly.^[1]

Name	Latitude	Country	Details
Eastern Venezuela Basin	10–8° N	Venezuela	The Eastern Venezuela Basin lies between several geological structures. To the south it bounds Guiana Shield, to the north metamorphic rocks of the easternmost Andes, to the west the Espino Graben, to the northeast the Barbados accretionary complex and to the east it bounds to the oceanic crust of the Atlantic Ocean.[4]
Barinas Basin	10–7° N	Colombia, Venezuela
Los Llanos Basin	7–1° N	Colombia, Venezuela
Oriente Basin	3° N–11° S	Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru	The Oriente Basin owes its configuration to the tectonic inversion of rifts of Triassic-Jurassic age due to the tectonic conditions of transpression that have prevailed in the region since the Late Cretaceous.[5]
Ucayali Basin	6–12° S	Peru
Madre de Dios Basin	10–13° S	Brazil, Bolivia, Peru
Beni Plain Basin	13–17° S	Bolivia
Santa Cruz Basin	17–23° S	Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay
Northwest Basin	22–32° S	Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay
Cuyo Basin	27–37° S	Argentina	The Cuyo Basin is an elongated sedimetary basin of NNW-SSE orientation limited to the west by the Sierra Pintada System and to the by the Pampean pericraton. To the north the basin reaches the area around the city of Mendoza. The basin existed already during the Triassic but its current shape is derivative of the Andean orogeny.[6]
Neuquén Basin	34–40° S	Argentina, Chile	Neuquén Basin is a sedimentary basin that originated in the Jurassic and developed through alternating continental and marine conditions well into the Tertiary. The basin bounds to the west with the Andean Volcanic Belt, to the southeast with the North Patagonian Massif and to the northeast with the Sierra Pintada System.[7]
Magallanes Basin Austral Basin	48–54° S	Argentina, Chile	The Magallanes Basin is a foreland basin located in southern Patagonia. The basin covers a surface of about 170.000–200.000 km^2 and has a NNW-SSE oriented shape.[8][9] The basin evolved from being an extensional back-arc basin in the Mesozoic to being a compressional foreland basin in the Cenozoic.[10]

References

1. Roddaz, Martin; Hermoza, Wilber; Mora, Andres; Baby, Patrice; Parra, Mauricio; Christophoul, Fédéric; Brusset, Stéphane; Espurt, Nicolas (2010). "Cenozoic sedimentary evolution of the Amazonian foreland basin system" (PDF). In Hoorn, C.; Wesselingh, F.P. Amazonia, Landscape and Species Evolution: A Look into the Past. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 61–88.
2. Jacques, John M. (203). "A tectonostratigraphic synthesis of the Sub-Andean basins: implications for the geotectonic segmentation of the Andean Belt". Journal of the Geological Society, London. 160: 687–701. doi:10.1144/0016-764902-088.
3. Subieta Rossetti, David; Baby, Patrice; Mugnier, Jean Louis (1996). Cenozoic evolution of the Andean foreland basin between 15'30' and 22'00'S (PDF). Third ISAG, St Malo (France). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1996.
4. Summa, L.L.; Goodman, E.D.; Richardson, M.; Norton, I.O.; Green, A.R. (2003). "Hydrocarbon systems of Northeastern Venezuela: plate through molecular scale-analysis of the genesis and evolution of the Eastern Venezuela Basin". Marine and Petroleum Geology. Elsevier. 20 (3–4): 323–349. doi:10.1016/s0264-8172(03)00040-0. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
5. Baby, Patrice; Rivadeneira, Marco; Barragán, Roberto (2004). "Introducción". In Baby, Patrice; Rivadeneira, Marco; Barragán, Roberto. La Cuenca Oriente: Geología y Petróleo (in Spanish). pp. 13–20. ISBN 9978-43-859-9.
6. "Cuenca Cuyana". Secretaría de Energía (in Spanish). Government of Argentina. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
7. "Cuenca Neuquina". Secretaría de Energía (in Spanish). Government of Argentina. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
8. Gallardo, Rocío E. (2014). "Seismic sequence stratigraphy of a foreland unit inthe [sic] Magallanes-Austral Basin, Dorado Riquelme Block, Chile: Implications for deep-marine reservoirs". Latin American Journal of Sedimentology and Basin Analysis (in Spanish). Asociación Argentina de Sedimentología. 1221 (1). Retrieved 7 December 2015.
9. "Cuenca Austral". Secretaría de Energía (in Spanish). Government of Argentina. Retrieved 30 November 2015. De una superficie total de 170.000 Km2, unos 23.000 Km2 pertenecen al área costa afuera.
10. Wilson, T.J. (1991). "Transition from back-arc to foreland basin development in the southernmost Andes: Stratigraphic record from the Ultima Esperanza District, Chile". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 103 (1): 98–111. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1991)103<0098:tfbatf>2.3.co;2.