Stratigraphic and Petrological Constraints of Cretaceous Subduction Initiation and Arc-Continent Collision in the Northern Andes

Abstract:

Middle to Late-Cretaceous orogenic events in the northern Andes have been commonly reconstructed from the analysis of inland basins or the integration of regional scale thermochronological, geochronological and geochemical datasets from the accreted blocks. In contrast, limited studies have been developed on the stratigraphic and deformational record of magmatic and sedimentary sequences exposed near the suture zones.

New field and petrologic data are used to characterize an ophiolite type sequence that outcrops in the western flank from the northwestern segment of the Central Cordillera of Colombia. Stratigraphic analysis indicate the existence of Albian-Aptian deep marine pelitic sequence interbedded with minor chert and thin quartz sandstone beds that apparently change to a volcanic dominate stratigraphy. Deformed ophiolite-like mafic and ultramafic plutonic rocks and isolated pillow lavas are also exposed to the east in fault contact with the pelitic sequence.

The pelitic and interlayered volcanic rocks represent the growth of an extensional Early-Cretaceous basin that followed a Late-Jurassic magmatic quiescence in the Northern Andes. The volcano-sedimentary record is probably related to the growth of a fore-arc basin in a new subduction zone that extends until the Late Cretaceous.

The deformation and obduction of the ophiolitic association and the fore-arc basin were probably triggered by the Late Cretaceous collision with an allocthonous plateau-arc associated to the migration of the Caribbean plate.