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Estratigrafía y Geología Histórica, Departamento de Geología, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Vélez Sarsfield 299, CC 395, 5000 Córdoba, Argentina rastini{at}satlink.com
Major stratigraphical evidence points toward initial rifting of the Precordillera terrane of western Argentina during the Early Cambrian from the Ouachita embayment in southeastern Laurentia. A first fully developed rifting episode is suggested from subsidence analysis and the sedimentary record. Restricted graben-fill red-beds and evaporites in the eastern tectofacies, together with coarse arkose and quartz conglomerate preserved as blocks in the western tectofacies, are interpreted as deposits of the initial rift-related brittle extension. Stratigraphical similarities with localities surrounding the Ouachita embayment leads to a model in which the Precordillera was the southern part of the pre-Appalachian Laurentia margin and the conjugate margin of the Texas promontory, separated along the Alabama-Oklahoma transform and the Ouachita rift, respectively. Overstepping of syn-rift facies by a thick succession of Lower Cambrian to Lower Ordovician carbonates indicates completion of rift-to-drift transition and initiation of thermo-tectonic subsidence characteristic of continental terrace passive-margin development. Slope facies, marginal faunal belts and recently dated mafic rocks indicate the development of an ocean basin separating the Precordillera from Laurentia by the Mid-Cambrian. A 20–30 Ma period of drifting and isolation is indicated from faunal and sedimentological evidence. Subsidence-induced incipient drowning and abundant K-bentonites suggest the influence of subduction and the progressive approach of the terrane to western Gondwana. Continuous Mid- and Late Ordovician post-collisional extension brackets the collision, although no clear evidence of shortening has been detected in the preserved former sedimentary bank. Post-collisional extension is separated by >70 Ma from the initial rifting.
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