FLINT, STEPHEN, and DAVID PRIOR, Liverpool University, Liverpool, United Kingdom, PETER STYLES and RUTH MURDIE, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and SUSAN AGAR and PETER TURNER, Birmingham University, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT: Upper Plate Responses to Active Spreading Ridge/Transform Subduction: the Tectonics, Basin Evolution, and Seismicity of the Taita Area, Chile Triple Junction

Integrated field geophysical, structural and stratigraphic studies are attempting to elucidate the mechanisms and consequences of the Late Miocene to present day subduction of the Chile Ridge triple junction system. Preliminary data indicate a shallow plane of seismicity at about 15 km to 20 km depth below the Taitao peninsula. The depths correspond to the predicted depth range of subducted upper ocean crust. The calculated Bouguer anomaly map cannot be explained by the upper plate geology, suggesting that gravity is influenced by heterogeneities in the subducting oceanic plate. Seismic data imply that a subducted transform system underlying the inner Taitao Peninsula is still an active structure. A series of Middle-Late Tertiary sedimentary basins lie inboard of the triple junction. ithin the Cosmelli basin, abrupt marine to continental facies transitions give clear evidence of base level changes. The amount of basinward shift of facies across sequence boundaries gets progressively greater up stratigraphy, indicating progressively greater base level changes. The lower part of the basin fill is folded and then thrusted eastward as a series of imbricates, while the overlying, greater thickness of fluvial sediments are only gently tilted westwards. We provisionally interpret this geometry to indicate that the early basin fill was deforming due to contractional tectonics while the later basin fill was being deposited. This complex basin history may reflect initiation and development of triple junction subduction.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90988©1993 AAPG/SVG International Congress and Exhibition, Caracas, Venezuela, March 14-17, 1993.