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West Antarctica: Tectonics and Paleogeography

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Late Cretaceous/Paleogene West Antarctica Terrestrial Biota and its Intercontinental Affinities

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Earth System Sciences ((BRIEFSEARTHSYST))

Abstract

West Antarctica is an ensemble of blocks that have moved independently of each other and of cratonic East Antarctica. The onset of Terra Australis orogenesis was responsible for the termination of passive margin sedimentation along the greater part of the Pacific margin of Gondwana and began a long-lived process of accretion that added much of the crust that defines eastern Australia, West Antarctica (domain 5 of Boger 2011), and western South America. By the Late Cretaceous, the Antarctic Peninsula and the remainder of West Antarctica are believed to have been comprised of a number of discrete micro-continental blocks forming a single elongated landmass that extended southward from southern South America. Since at least that time the Antarctic Peninsula has been in its present position relative to South America, at almost the same paleolatitude (South 60–65°).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. División Paleontología de Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/n, 1900, La Plata, Argentina

    Marcelo Reguero, Francisco Goin & Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche

  2. Instituto Antártico Argentino, 1010, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Sergio Marenssi

  3. SINOS—UNISINOS, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos, Av. Unisinos 950, 93022-000, Sao Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

    Tania Dutra

Authors
  1. Marcelo Reguero
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  2. Francisco Goin
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  3. Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche
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  4. Sergio Marenssi
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  5. Tania Dutra
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Correspondence to Marcelo Reguero .

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Reguero, M., Goin, F., Acosta Hospitaleche, C., Marenssi, S., Dutra, T. (2013). West Antarctica: Tectonics and Paleogeography. In: Late Cretaceous/Paleogene West Antarctica Terrestrial Biota and its Intercontinental Affinities. SpringerBriefs in Earth System Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5491-1_2

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