(Un)Coupled thrust belt-foreland deformation in the northern Patagonian Andes: new insights from the Esquel-Gastre sector (41°30’–43° S)

The Patagonian Andes represent a unique natural laboratory to study surface deformation in relation to deep slab dynamics. In the sector comprised between latitudes 41°30’ and 43°S, new apatite (U-Th)/He ages indicate a markedly different unroofing pattern between the ‘broken foreland’ area (characterized by Late Cretaceous to Paleogene exhumation) and the adjacent Andean sector to the west, which is dominated by Miocene-Pliocene exhumation. These unroofing stages can be confidently ascribed to inversion tectonics involving reverse fault-related uplift and concomitant erosion. Late Cretaceous-Paleogene shortening and exhumation are well known to have affected also the thrust belt sector of the study area during a prolonged stage of flat-slab subduction. Therefore, the different ages of near-surface unroofing documented in this study suggest coupling of the deformation between the thrust belt and its foreland during periods of flat-slab subduction (e.g. during Late Cretaceous-Paleogene times), and dominant uncoupling during periods of steep-slab subduction and rollback, even when these are associated with high convergence rates (i.e. > 4 cm/year), as those documented in Miocene times for the Patagonian Andes.