| Magallanes or Austral Basin | |
|---|---|
| Cuenca de Magallanes, Cuenca Austral | |
  | |
| Coordinates | 53°00′S 69°30′W / 53.000°S 69.500°W |
| Etymology | Strait of Magellan Austral = "south" |
| Location | Southern South America |
| Region | Patagonia |
| Country |  Argentina Chile |
| State(s) | Santa Cruz Province Aysén & Magallanes Regions |
| Cities | Punta Arenas Ushuaia |
| Characteristics | |
| On/Offshore | Both |
| Boundaries | Andes, Río Chico-Dungeness High |
| Part of | Andean foreland basins |
| Area | 170,000–200,000 km2 (66,000–77,000 sq mi) |
| Hydrology | |
| Sea(s) | Southern Atlantic Ocean |
| River(s) | Shehuén River |
| Lake(s) | Viedma, Cardiel, Argentino, Pueyrredón, Fontana |
| Geology | |
| Basin type | Foreland basin |
| Orogeny | Andean |
| Age | Jurassic-Holocene |
| Stratigraphy | Stratigraphy |
| Field(s) | Chilean coal |
The Magallanes Basin[A] or Austral Basin[B] is a major sedimentary basin in southern Patagonia. The basin covers a surface of about 170,000 to 200,000 square kilometres (66,000 to 77,000 sq mi) and has a NNW-SSE oriented shape.[1][2] The basin is bounded to the west by the Andes mountains and is separated from the Malvinas Basin to the east by the Río Chico-Dungeness High.[1] The basin evolved from being an extensional back-arc basin in the Mesozoic to being a compressional foreland basin in the Cenozoic.[3] Rocks within the basin are Jurassic in age and include the Cerro Toro Formation.[4] Three ages of the SALMA classification are defined in the basin; the Early Miocene Santacrucian from the Santa Cruz Formation and Friasian from the Río Frías Formation and the Pleistocene Ensenadan from the La Ensenada Formation.
The Magallanes Basin contains most of Chile's coal reserves dwarfing those found in the Arauco Basin or around Valdivia (e.g. Catamutún, Mulpún). Its coals are lignitic to sub-bituminous.[5]
Cite error: There are <ref group=upper-alpha> tags or {{efn-ua}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=upper-alpha}} template or {{notelist-ua}} template (see the help page).
- ^ a b Gallardo, Rocío E. (2014). "Seismic sequence stratigraphy of a foreland unit inthe [sic] Magallanes-Austral Basin, Dorado Riquelme Block, Chile: Implications for deep-marine reservoirs". Latin American Journal of Sedimentology and Basin Analysis (in Spanish). 1221 (1). Retrieved 7 December 2015.
- ^ "Cuenca Austral". Secretaría de Energía (in Spanish). Government of Argentina. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
De una superficie total de 170.000 Km2, unos 23.000 Km2 pertenecen al área costa afuera.
- ^ Wilson, T.J. (1991). "Transition from back-arc to foreland basin development in the southernmost Andes: Stratigraphic record from the Ultima Esperanza District, Chile". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 103 (1): 98–111. Bibcode:1991GSAB..103...98W. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1991)103<0098:tfbatf>2.3.co;2.
- ^ Fosdick, Julie C. (2007). Late Miocene Exhumation of the Magallanes Basin and sub-Andean fold belt, southern Chile: New constrains from apatite U-Th/He thermochronology. Geological Society of America, Denver Annual Meeting (28–31 October 2007) Paper No. 123-15. Denver.
- ^ Hackley, Paul C.; Warwick, Peter D.; Alfaro, Guillermo H.; Cuebas, Rosenelsy M. (2006). "World Coal Quality Inventory: Chile" (PDF). World Coal Quality Inventory: South America (Report). USGS. pp. 90–131. Retrieved February 23, 2017.