Morphostructural evolution of the Medeiros hills, Lerma valley, Cordillera Oriental, Northwestern Argentina

Vctor Hugo Garca *, Fernando Hongn , Sergio Nicols Gatica , Daro Rubn Vera , Martn Nazareno Parada Instituto de Investigacin en Paleobiologa y Geologa, Universidad Nacional de Ro Negro, Isidro Lobo y Belgrano (8332) General Roca, Rio Negro, Argentina 2 Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del NOA (CONICET-UNSa), Mendoza 2 (4400) Salta, Argentina *Contact email: victorg76@gmail.com

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Abstract. The Lerma valley is an intermontane tectonic depression located in the Cordillera Oriental of NW Argentina. Basement-cored thrust sheets are flanking the valley and controlling its N-S elongated shape. The uplift of these basement blocks took place during late Miocene to Plio-Pleistocene, synchronously with the deposition of fluvial-alluvial sequences. The Medeiros hills are located at the northern extreme of this valley and represent the geomorphic expression of the southward propagation of the Vaqueros anticline. In these hills, middle to upper Pleistocene fluvial conglomerates are uplifted more than 150 meters with respect to its stratigraphic position in the undeformed basin. The pattern of six strath terraces sculpted in the northern sector of the hills has been interpreted as evidences of the forced migration northward of the Vaqueros river during recent uplifting events. The main objectives of this research are to describe the structure of the hills and interpret its tectonic evolution along the Quaternary using new structural, geomorphologic and topographic data. Keywords: Neotectonics, deformed terraces, tectonic geomorphology

Vaqueros river during recent uplifting events (Georgieff and Gonzlez Bonorino, 2005; Gonzlez Bonorino and Abascal, 2008; Garca, 2010, 2011). New structural, geomorphologic and topographic data have been collected and analysed in order to describe the structure of the hills and interpret its tectonic evolution along the Quaternary.

1 Introduction
The Lerma valley is an intermontane tectonic depression located between 2430` and 2535` SL into the Cordillera Oriental geological province (Figure 1). N-S trending basement-cored thrust sheets are flanking the valley and controlling its elongated shape. According Monaldi et al. (1996), the uplift of these basement blocks took place during late Miocene to Plio-Pleistocene, synchronously with the deposition of fluvial-alluvial sediments in the depression. The northernmost part of the Lerma valley is surrounded to the east by the Mojotoro range, to the north by the Vaqueros range and to the west by the Lesser range (Figure 2). In this sector the Medeiros hills are the geomorphic expression of the southward propagation of the Vaqueros anticline (Baudino, 1996; Garca, 2010). At these hills, middle to upper Pleistocene fluvial conglomerates are uplifted at least 150 meters above its stratigraphic position in the undeformed valley (Baudino, 1996; Gonzlez Bonorino et al., 2003). The pattern of strath terraces (T1 to T6, from oldest to youngest) sculpted in the northern sector of the hills (Figure 3a) indicates forced migration northward of the
Figure 1. Location of the Lerma valley (red box) in the context of the geological provinces of NW Argentina.

2 Geological setting
The neotectonic basement of the Lerma valley in the Medeiros sector is composed by deformed metasedimentary rocks of Proterozoic age (Puncoviscana Formation); Cambro-Ordovician marine sandstones and mudstones (Mesn Group and Santa Victoria Group); and Mio-Pliocene continental red beds (Orn Group). The Quaternary infill of the valley in this region begins with reddish conglomerates and siltstones of the uppermost part of the Orn Group (Piquete Formation), unconformable covered by fluvial conglomerates and minor siltstones of the Calvimonte Formation (0,3 +/- 0,1 Ma, Malamud et al., 1996) and recent fluvial deposits of as much as 10 meters of thickness (Figure 2). At this latitude, the Cordillera Oriental is a thick-skinned fold-and-thrust belt (FTB), involving basement rocks in the deformation (e.g. Monaldi et al., 1996; Cristallini et al., 1997; Carrera and Muoz, 2008; Hongn et al., 2010;

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Carrapa et al., 2011). The dcollement level of the FTB is located at depths between 15 and 25 km, dipping gently to the west. Above the dcollement, both thrusts and backthrusts compose the FTB. In the study area a main thrust is uplifting the Mojotoro range to the east, while a series of subparallel backthrusts uplift the Quijano and Lesser ranges to the west. The Caldera and Vaqueros anticlines are depicted by Piquete Formation indicating a shallower dcollement level probably located at the contact between Tertiary and Paleozoic units (Figure 2).

Formation and displacing the T1 terrace. From balanced cross-sections constructed for the Medeiros hills the total shortening and depth of the dcollement have been calculated. The total shortening measured for the middle section of Piquete Formation is around 1 km and the depth of dcollement is located at 1.35 km b.s.l. (around 2.7 km below the topographic surface). 3.2 Geomorphic markers Topographic profiles of six terraces and the Vaqueros river were measured using the SRTM digital elevation model of 30 meters of spatial resolution (Figure 3a). The profiles were re-projected over an E-W line, perpendicular to the axis of the anticline in order to evaluate if the terraces are folded. The Vaqueros river has a convex down profile, showing that erosion/sedimentation processes are dominating. The terraces profiles, instead, show convex up profiles indicating that were affected by folding processes (Figure 3b). The altitude difference between the terraces and the Vaqueros river was calculated to quantify the amount of deformation accumulated by each one (Figure 3c). The profiles of the terraces show an irregular design in frontal limb reflecting erosional degradation. The amplitude of the folding is maximum for T1 (80 meters) and minimum for T6 (10 meters). The scarp developed toward the east of T1 and T2 profiles is related with the oblique backthrust that was described above. The easternmost part of T3, T4 and T5 profiles shows the topographic high associated with interstratal slip in the frontal limb. The small profile break observed to the west of T2 and T3 profiles could be reflecting reactivation of a blind thrust with east vergence at the fold backlimb, similar to the documented at the northern part of Vaqueros anticline. The design of the folded terraces can be modeled using the same backlimb trishear algorithm applied to explain the progressive unconformities in the Piquete Formation.

Figure 2. Geological and neotectonic map of the northern part of the Lerma valley (after Garca et al., 2011). The red box indicates the studied area.

3 Structure and geomorphology of Medeiros hills

3.1 Structural observations Along some creeks at Medeiros hills, the unconformable relationship between Calvimonte Formation and Piquete Formation has been stablished. The conglomerates of Calvimonte Formation are subhorizontal over the Piquete Formation that is dipping around 60/090 at its eastern side and between 30 to 10/270 progressively decreasing to its western side. These orientations define an assymetrical fault propagation anticline with eastward vergence developed over a blind thrust dipping 30 to the west. The dip decreasing in the backlimb are interpreted as progressive unconformities controlled by backlimb trishear mechanisms (Cristallini and Allmendinger, 2002). Many minor faults were recognized. At the frontal flank an interstratal backthrust developed in siltstones of Piquete Formation is folding the overlying Quaternary conglomerates. This fault has N-S trend and could be the responsible for the topographic high located at the eastern flank of the hills. In the axial zone of the anticline there are some N-S normal faults developed in Piquete Formation with evidences of syntectonic sedimentation, while an oblique backthrust dipping 45/125 is repeating Piquete

4 Discussion and conclusions

a. Supposing that the Medeiros anticline growing began at the Pliocene-Pleistocene limit (ca. 2.6 Ma) the mean shortening rate of the structure is around 0.39 mm/yr. b. Synsedimentary normal faults recognized at the fold axis and progressive unconformities interpreted at the backlimb indicate growing of the anticline during deposition of Piquete Formation (Upper Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene). b. Folding and faulting of T1, T2, T3 and T4 terraces are showing tectonics activity during Middle to Upper Pleistocene (Calvimonte Formation). c. Folding of T5 and T6 terraces could be interpreted as the result of Upper Pleistocene to Holocene uplifting events. d. The uplift rate of Medeiros anticline for the last 300 Ka can be estimated in, at least, 0.5 mm/yr taking into account

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the altitude difference between T1 and the top of Calvimonte Formation in the undeformed basin.

Acknowledgements
This study was partially supported by the following research projects: CIUNSa 1679, PICT 2008-381, PICT 2010-1441 and PICT-O UNRN 2010-175.

References
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Figure 3. A) Satellite image of the Medeiros terraces with the location of the topographic profiles measured. B) Topographic profiles of the terraces and the Vaqueros river using 30 m spatial resolution SRTM DEM. C) Altitude difference between the terraces and the Vaqueros river. In both figures, the profiles have been projected along a line perpendicular to the N-S axis of the anticline.

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