Sedimentary record of plate coupling and decoupling during growth of the Andes

Geochronologic, provenance, and sediment accumulation records from the long-lived (>100 m.y.) retroarc basin at the transition from the central to southern Andes provide improved resolution to examine the duration and controls on mixed-mode deformation and an enigmatic foreland depositional hiatus. Detrital zircon U-Pb ages for the Malargue and Neuquen basin systems of western Argentina reveal shifts in exhumation and accumulation compatible with magmatic-arc and thrust-belt sources during unsteady Cretaceous–Neogene deformation. Fully developed foreland basin conditions were only achieved during separate periods of Late Cretaceous and Neogene shortening contemporaneous with possible episodes of enhanced coupling between a westward-advancing South American plate and the subducting Nazca slab. Separating these two contractional episodes is a 20–40 m.y. phase of reduced sedimentation and unconformity development, potentially signifying a neutral to extensional mode across the retroarc hinterland to forearc region during diminished plate coupling. We propose that the Andean orogen and its foreland and forearc basins have always been sensitive to variations in subduction dynamics, such that regional shifts in slab buoyancy and subduction geometry (particularly slab dip) superimposed on plate-scale shifts in convergence have governed mechanical coupling along the plate boundary and resulting fluctuations among contractional, extensional, and neutral tectonic regimes.