Clockwise rotation of the Santa Marta massif and simultaneous Paleogene to Neogene deformation of the Plato-San Jorge and Cesar-Rancheria basins

A moderate amount of vertical-axis clockwise rotation of the Santa Marta massif (30 degrees) explains as much as 115 km of extension (stretching of 1.75) along its trailing edge (Plato-San Jorge basin) and up to 56 km of simultaneous shortening with an angular shear of 0.57 along its leading edge (Perija range). Extensional deformation is recorded in the 260 km-wide, fan-shaped Plato-San Jorge basin by a 2-8 km thick, shallowing-upward and almost entirely fine-grained, upper Eocene and younger sedimentary sequence. The simultaneous initiation of shortening in the Cesar-Rancheria basin is documented by Mesozoic strata placed on to lower Eocene syntectonic strata (Tabaco Formation and equivalents) along the northwest-verging, shallow dipping (9-12 degrees to the southeast) and discrete Cerrejon thrust. First-order subsidence analysis in the Plato-San Jorge basin is consistent with crustal stretching values between 1.5 and 2, also predicted by the rigid-body rotation of the Santa Marta massif. The model predicts about 100 km of right-lateral displacement along the Oca fault and 45 km of left-lateral displacement along the Santa Marta-Bucaramanga fault. Clockwise rotation of a rigid Santa Marta massif, and simultaneous Paleogene opening of the Plato-San Jorge basin and emplacement of the Cerrejon thrust sheet would have resulted in the fragmentation of the Cordillera Central-Santa Marta massif province. New U/Pb ages (241 +/- 3 Ma) on granitoid rocks from industry boreholes in the Plato-San Jorge basin confirm the presence of fragments of a now segmented, Late Permian to Early Triassic age, two-mica, granitic province that once spanned the Santa Marta massif to the northernmost Cordillera Central. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.