The Loncopué Trough: A Cenozoic basin produced by extension in the southern Central Andes

The Loncopué Trough is located in the hinterland Andean zone between 36°30′ and 39°S. It constitutes a topographic low bounded by normal faults and filled by lavas and sediments less than 5 Ma old. Reprocessed seismic lines show wedge-like depocenters up to 1700 m deep associated with high-angle faults, correlated with the 27–17 Ma Cura Mallín basin deposits, and buried beneath Pliocene to Quaternary successions and Late Miocene foreland sequences. The southern Central Andes seem to have been under extension in the hinterland zone some 27 Ma ago and again at approximately 5 Ma ago. This last extensional period could have been the product of slab steepening after a shallow subduction cycle in the area, although other alternatives are discussed. Orogenic wedge topography, altered by the first extensional stage in the area, was recovered through Late Miocene inversion, and was associated with foreland sequences. However, since the last extension (<5 Ma) the Andes have not recovered their characteristic contractional behavior that controlled past orogenic growth.