Arequipa-Antofalla

{{short description|South American geology}}

Arequipa-Antofalla is a basement unit underlying the central Andes in northwestern Argentina, western Bolivia, northern Chile and southern Peru. Geologically, it corresponds to a craton,{{cite journal |last1=Casquet |first1=C. |last2=Pankhurst |first2=R.J. |last3=Rapela |first3=C.W. |last4=Galindo |first4=C. |last5=Fanning |first5=C.M. |last6=Chiaradia |first6=M. |last7=Baldo |first7=E. |last8=González-Casado |first8=J.M. |last9=Dahlquist |first9=J.A. |author-link2=Robert John Pankhurst |date=2008 |title=The Mesoproterozoic Maz terrane in the Western Sierras Pampeanas, Argentina, equivalent to the Arequipa-Antofalla block of southern Peru? Implications for West Gondwana margin evolution |url=http://eprints.ucm.es/12093/1/Casquet_et_al_GR_1-2008.pdf |journal=Gondwana Research |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=163–175 |doi= 10.1016/j.gr.2007.04.005|access-date=8 August 2016|bibcode=2008GondR..13..163C }} terrane or block of continental crust. Arequipa-Antofalla collided and amalgamated with the Amazonian craton about 1000 million years ago during the Sunsás orogeny.{{Cite journal |author=Staci L. Loewy, James N. Connelly and Ian W.D. Dalziel |year=2003 |title=An orphaned basement block: The Arequipa-Antofalla Basement of the central Andean margin of South America |doi=10.1130/B25226.1 |journal=GSA Bulletin |volume=116 |issue=1–2 |pages=171–187 }} As a terrane, Arequipa-Antofalla was ribbon-shaped during the Paleozoic, a time when it was bounded in the west by the Iapetus Ocean and in the east by the Puncoviscana Ocean.{{cite journal |last1=Escayola P. |first1=Mónica |last2=van Staal |first2=Cees R. |last3=Davis |first3=William J. |date=2011 |title=The age and tectonic setting of the Puncoviscana Formation in northwestern Argentina: An accretionary complex related to Early Cambrian closure of the Puncoviscana Ocean and accretion of the Arequipa-Antofalla block |journal=Journal of South American Earth Sciences |volume=32 |issue= 4|pages=438–459 |doi= 10.1016/j.jsames.2011.04.013|bibcode=2011JSAES..32..438E |hdl=11336/84857 |hdl-access=free }}