Abstract
The South-American plate is part of the Gondwana Supercontinent (Fig. 2.1). 140 million years ago it disengaged from Africa and drifted westwards through an opening in the Atlantic. This triggered volcanic activity in the form of broad flows in the interior of the continent and of innercontinental rift valleys and basins that slowly filled up. In the west, subduction of marine plates allowed a tectonically active mountain range to emerge that is defined by volcanism (Fig. 2.2)—the Andes. The continental crust of South America kept on expanding and over time subduction created new ranges in the west so that today the Andes consist of up to three parallel mountain ranges.
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Borsdorf, A., Stadel, C. (2015). Factors, Processes and Spaces of Physical Geography. In: The Andes. Springer Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03530-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03530-7_2
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