Magallanes Basin

Summary

The Magallanes Basin[A] or Austral Basin[B] is a major sedimentary basin in southern Patagonia. The basin covers a surface of about 170,000 to 200,000 square kilometres (66,000 to 77,000 sq mi) and has a NNW-SSE oriented shape.[1][2] The basin is bounded to the west by the Andes mountains and is separated from the Malvinas Basin to the east by the Río Chico-Dungeness High.[1] The basin evolved from being an extensional back-arc basin in the Mesozoic to being a compressional foreland basin in the Cenozoic.[3] Rocks within the basin are Jurassic in age and include the Cerro Toro Formation.[4] Three ages of the SALMA classification are defined in the basin; the Early Miocene Santacrucian from the Santa Cruz Formation and Friasian from the Río Frías Formation and the Pleistocene Ensenadan from the La Ensenada Formation.

Magallanes or Austral Basin
Cuenca de Magallanes, Cuenca Austral
Map showing the location of Magallanes or Austral Basin
Map showing the location of Magallanes or Austral Basin
Coordinates53°00′S 69°30′W / 53.000°S 69.500°W / -53.000; -69.500
EtymologyStrait of Magellan
Austral = "south"
LocationSouthern South America
RegionPatagonia
Country Argentina
 Chile
State(s)Santa Cruz Province
Aysén & Magallanes Regions
CitiesPunta Arenas
Ushuaia
Characteristics
On/OffshoreBoth
BoundariesAndes, Río Chico-Dungeness High
Part ofAndean foreland basins
Area170,000–200,000 km2 (66,000–77,000 sq mi)
Hydrology
Sea(s)Southern Atlantic Ocean
River(s)Shehuén River
Lake(s)Viedma, Cardiel, Argentino, Pueyrredón, Fontana
Geology
Basin typeForeland basin
OrogenyAndean
AgeJurassic-Holocene
StratigraphyStratigraphy
Field(s)Chilean coal

The Magallanes Basin contains most of Chile's coal reserves dwarfing those found in the Arauco Basin or around Valdivia (e.g. Catamutún, Mulpún). Its coals are lignitic to sub-bituminous.[5]

Stratigraphy edit

Aysén Basin edit

The northwesternmost reaches of the basin form a sub-basin known as Aysén Basin or Río Mayo Embayment. From top to bottom the fill the basin is:[6]

Northwestern basin edit

In the Argentinian parts of the basin, the following formations have been registered from north to south:[7]

South-central basin edit

Tierra del Fuego edit

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Chiefly used in Chile[citation needed]
  2. ^ Mainly used in Argentina[citation needed]

References edit

  1. ^ a b 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). 1221 (1). Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  2. ^ "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.
  3. ^ 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. Bibcode:1991GSAB..103...98W. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1991)103<0098:tfbatf>2.3.co;2.
  4. ^ Fosdick, Julie C. (2007). Late Miocene Exhumation of the Magallanes Basin and sub-Andean fold belt, southern Chile: New constrains from apatite U-Th/He thermochronology. Geological Society of America, Denver Annual Meeting (28–31 October 2007) Paper No. 123-15. Denver.
  5. ^ Hackley, Paul C.; Warwick, Peter D.; Alfaro, Guillermo H.; Cuebas, Rosenelsy M. (2006). "World Coal Quality Inventory: Chile" (PDF). World Coal Quality Inventory: South America (Report). USGS. pp. 90–131. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  6. ^ Demant, A.; Suárez, M.; de la Cruz, R.; Bruguier, O (2010). "Early Cretaceous Surtseyan volcanoes of the Baño Nuevo Volcanic Complex (Aysén Basin, Eastern Central Patagonian Cordillera, Chile)". Geologica Acta. 8 (2): 207–219. doi:10.1344/105.000001530.
  7. ^ Pérez Panera, 2010, p.52

Bibliography edit

Cretaceous
  • Pérez Panera, Juan Pablo. 2010. Sistemática y bioestratigrafía de los nanofósiles calcáreos del Cretácico del sudeste de la Cuenca Austral, Santa Cruz, Argentina (PhD thesis), 1–450. Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
Neogene
  • Abello, María Alejandra, and David Rubilar Rogers. 2012. Revisión del género Abderites Ameghino, 1887 (Marsupialia, Paucituberculata). Ameghiniana 49(2). 164–184. Accessed 2019-02-15.
  • Arnal, M., and M.G. Vucetich. 2015. Revision of the fossil rodent Acaremys Ameghino, 1887 (Hystricognathi, Octodontoidea, Acaremyidae) from the Miocene of Patagonia (Argentina) and the description of a new acaremyid. Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology 27(1). 42–59. Accessed 2019-02-13.
  • Bellosi, Eduardo S. et al. 2014. Ambientes asociados a la fauna Friasense (Mioceno Medio) en Alto río Cisnes (Aysén, Chile), 40–41. XIV Reuñión Argentina de Sedimentología. Accessed 2018-09-10.
  • Bostelmann, J.E. et al. 2012. The Alto Río Cisnes Fossil Fauna (Río Frías Formation, Early-Middle Miocene, Friasian SALMA): A keystone and paradigmatic vertebrate assemblage of the South American Fossil Record, 44–45. III Simposio Paleontología en Chile. Accessed 2018-09-10.
  • Dal Molín, C.N., and F. Colombo. 2003. Sedimentación neógena en la Cuenca del Río Zeballos y del Río Jeinemeni (47° Latitud Sur) Antepaís patagónico Argentina. Geogaceta 34. 139–142. Accessed 2018-09-10.
  • Góis, Flávio; Laureano Raúl González Ruiz; Gustavo Juan Scillato Yané, and Esteban Soibelzon. 2015. A Peculiar New Pampatheriidae (Mammalia: Xenarthra: Cingulata) from the Pleistocene of Argentina and Comments on Pampatheriidae Diversity. PLoS ONE 10(6). e0128296. Accessed 2019-02-13.
  • Kramarz, Alejandro G., and Mariano Bond. 2005. Los Litopterna (Mammalia) de la Formación Pinturas, Mioceno Temprano-Medio de Patagonia. Ameghiniana 42. 611–625. Accessed 2017-08-15.
  • Kramarz, Alejandro G. 2001. Estudio de la fauna de roedores de la Formación Pinturas, Mioceno medio inferior de la Provincia de Santa Cruz (PhD thesis), 1–300. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Accessed 2017-08-15.
  • Le Roux, Jacobus P.; Jacqueline Puratich; F. Amaro Mourgues; José Luis Oyarzún; Rodrigo A. Otero; Teresa Torres, and Francisco Hervé. 2010. Estuary deposits in the Río Baguales Formation (Chattian-Aquitanean), Magallanes Province, Chile. Andean Geology 37. 329–344. Accessed 2017-10-25.
  • Marshall, Larry G.. 1990. Fossil Marsupialia from the type Friasian land mammal age (Miocene), Alto Río Cisnes, Aisén, Chile. Revista Geológica de Chile 17. 19–55. Accessed 2017-10-21.
  • Marshall, Larry G., and Patricia Salinas. 1990. Stratigraphy of the Río Frías Formation (Miocene) along the Alto Río Cisnes, Aisén, Chile. Revista Geológica de Chile 17. 57–87. Accessed 2017-10-21.
  • Náñez, Carolina; Mirta E. Quattrocchio, and Liliana Ruiz. 2009. Palinología y micropaleontología de las Formaciones San Julián y Monte León (Oligoceno - Mioceno temprano) en el subsuelo de cabo Curioso, provincia de Santa Cruz, Argentina. Ameghiniana 46. 669–693. Accessed 2017-08-15.
  • Picasso, Mariana B.J., and Federico J. Degrange. 2009. El género Nothura (Aves, Tinamidae) en el Pleistoceno (Formación Ensenada) de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas 26. 428–432. Accessed 2018-09-10.
  • Tonni, E.P. et al. 1999. The Ensenada and Buenos Aires formations (Pleistocene) in a quarry near La Plata, Argentina. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 12. 273–291. Accessed 2018-09-10.
  • Verzi, Diego H.; A. Itatí Olivares, and Cecilia C. Morgan. 2017. Systematics and evolutionary significance of the small Abrocomidae from the early Miocene of southern South America. Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology 29(3). 411–422. Accessed 2019-02-12.
  • Vizcaíno, Sergio F.; Richard F. Kay, and Susana Bargo. 2012. Early Miocene Paleobiology in Patagonia: High-Latitude Paleocommunities of the Santa Cruz Formation, 1–370. Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521194617. Accessed 2017-10-21.

Further reading edit

  • Bally, A.W., and S. Snelson. 1980. Realms of subsidence. Canadian Society for Petroleum Geology Memoir 6. 9–94. .
  • Kingston, D.R.; C.P. Dishroon, and P.A. Williams. 1983. Global Basin Classification System. AAPG Bulletin 67. 2175–2193. Accessed 2017-06-23.
  • Klemme, H.D. 1980. Petroleum Basins - Classifications and Characteristics. Journal of Petroleum Geology 3. 187–207. Accessed 2017-06-23.
  • Moreno, Teresa, and Wes Gibbons. 2006. Geology of Chile, 1–396. Geological Society of London. Accessed 2018-09-06. ISBN 9781862392199