Tectonic overview of the West Gondwana margin

• Published in: Gondwana Research
• Main Authors: Vaughan, Alan P.M., Pankhurst, Robert J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2008
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Patagonia; West Antarctica; Victoria Land; Transantarctic Mountains; New Zealand; Argentina; Ellsworth Mountains; Terra Australis; Antarc*; Antarctica; Antarctica New Zealand
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6325/; https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6325/1/Vaughan_%26_Pankhurst_GR_focus_final_revised.pdf; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/1342937X

The oceanic southern margin of Gondwana, from southern South America through South Africa, West Antarctica, New Zealand (in its pre break-up position), and Victoria Land to Eastern Australia is one of the longest and longest-lived active continental margins known. It was the site of the 18,000 km Terra Australis orogen, which was initiated in Neoproterozoic times with the break-up of Rodinia, and evolved into the Mesozoic Australides. The Gondwana margin was completed, in Late Cambrian times, by closure of the Adamastor Ocean (between Brazilian and southwest African components) and the Mozambique Ocean (between East and West Gondwana), forming the Brasiliano-Pan-African mobile belts. During the Early Palaeozoic much of the southern margin was dominated by successive episodes of subduction-accretion. Eastern Australia, Northern Victoria Land and the Transantarctic Mountains were affected by one of the first of these events – the Late Cambrian Ross/Delamerian orogeny, remnants of which may be found in the Antarctic Peninsula – but also contain two accreted terranes of unknown age and origin. Similar events are recognized at the South American end of the margin, where the Cambrian Pampean orogeny occurred with dextral strike-slip along the western edge of the Río de la Plata craton, followed by an Ordovician active margin (Famatinian) associated with the collision of the Precordillera terrane. However, the central part of the margin (the Sierra de la Ventana of eastern Argentina, the Cape Fold Belt of South Africa and the Ellsworth Mountains of West Antarctica) seem to represent a passive margin during the Early Palaeozoic, with the accumulation of predominantly reworked continental sedimentary deposits (Du Toit's ‘Samfrau Geosyncline’). In many of the outer areas, accretion and intense granitic/rhyolitic magmatism continued during the Late Palaeozoic, with collision of several small continental terranes, many of which are nevertheless of Gondwana origin: e.g., southern Patagonia and (possibly) ‘Chilenia’ in the ...