Cuyo Basin

Cuyo Basin (Spanish: Cuenca Cuyana) is a sedimentary basin in Mendoza Province, western Argentina. The Cuyo Basin has a NNW-SSE elongated shape and is limited to the west by the Sierra Pintada System and to the by the Pampean pericraton. To the north the basin reaches the area around the city of Mendoza.[1] It has two major sub-basins: Cacheuta (Spanish: Subcuenca Cacheuta) in the north and Alvear (Spanish: Subcuenca Alvear) in the south. The northern fringes of Cacheuta sub-basin reaches into San Juan Province. The basin existed already during the Triassic but its current shape is derivative of the Andean orogeny.[1]

The basin originated as a rift basin in the context of extensional tectonics and crustal thinning that followed the Paleozoic Gondwanide orogeny.[note 1] Its basal part hosts deposits of the Choiyoi Group.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ These tectonics are not related to the break-up of Gondwana later in the Mesozoic.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 "Cuenca Cuyana". Secretaría de Energía (in Spanish). Government of Argentina. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  2. 1 2 Spalletti, L.A.; Fanning, C.M.; Rapela, C.W. (2008). "Dating the Triassic continental rift in the southern Andes: the Potrerillos Formation, Cuyo Basin, Argentina". Geologica Acta. 6 (3): 267–283.
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