Late Jurassic Crustal Thickening in the Mesozoic Arc of Ecuador and Colombia: Implications on the Evolution of Continental Arcs.

The tectonic evolution of South America during the Jurassic is related to the subduction of the Farallon plate and the formation of a series of continental arcs. In the northern Andes such arcs have been considered as controlled by extensional dominated tectonics. Paleomagnetic constraints have also suggested that between the Early and Late Jurassic several crustal domains were translate along the continental margin in association with strain partitioning in the convergent margin.

A review of the character of the Salado terrane in the Cordillera Real of Ecuador indicates that it includes extensively deformed and metamorphosed volcano-sedimentary rocks that have achieved a greenschist to amphibolite facies event with chloritoid and garnet. This rocks are tightly associated with a ca. 143 Ma syn-tectonic granodiorite to monzogranite batholith that is also extensively milonitized.

A similar Late Jurassic crustal thickening event that apparently affected volcano-sedimentary rocks have been also recently suspected in the Central Cordillera of the Colombian Andes in association with Jurassic plutonic rocks (Blanco-Quintero et al., 2013)

It is therefore suggested that during the Late Jurassic the Northern Andes experienced significant contractional tectonics. Such crustal thickening may be related to either the active subduction setting were the crustal slivers formed in relation to oblique convergence are transfered and re-accreted to the margin and triggered the deformational event or to a collisional event associated to the arrival of an allocthonous terrane.

New geochronological constraints on the metamorphic evolution and precise understanding on the relations between magmatism and deformation are going to be obtain in the Salado Terrane to appropriately test this hypothesis and contribute to the understanding of the extensional to compressional tectonic switching in continental arcs.

Blanco-Quintero, I. F., García-Casco, A., Ruíz, E. C., Toro, L. M., Moreno, M., & Vinasco, C. J. (2013). New Petrological and Geochronological Data frtom the Cajamarca Complex (Central Cordillera, Colombia) In the Cajamarca-Ibague Region: Late Jurassic Thermal Resetting of Triassic Metamorphic Ages or Jurassic Orogenic Metamorphism? In XIV Congreso Colombiano de Geología. Bogotá.