ACTIVE FAULTING IN NORTHERN CHILE - RAMP STACKING AND LATERAL DECOUPLING ALONG A SUBDUCTION PLATE BOUNDARY

Two large features parallel to the coastline of northern Chile have long been suspected to be the sites of young or active deformation: (1) The 700-km long Coastal Scarp, with average height (above sea level) of about 1000 m; (2) The Atacama Fault zone, that stretches linearly for about 1100 km at an average distance of 30-50 km from the coastline. New field observations combined with extensive analysis of aerial photographs demonstrate that both the Coastal Scarp and the Atacama Fault are zones of Quaternary and current fault activity. Little-degraded surface breaks observed in the field indicate that these fault zones have recently generated large earthquakes (M = 7-8). Normal fault offsets observed in marine terraces in the Coastal Scarp (at Mejillones Peninsula) require tectonic extension roughly orthogonal to the compressional plate boundary. Strike-slip offsets of drainage observed along the Salar del Carmen and Cerro Moreno faults (Atacama Fault system) imply left-lateral displacements nearly parallel to the plate boundary. The left-lateral movement observed along the Atacama Fault zone may be a local consequence of E-W extension along the Coastal Scarp. But if also found everywhere along strike, left-lateral decoupling along the Atacama Fault zone would be in contradiction with the right lateral component of Nazca-South America motion predicted by models of present plate kinematics. Clockwise rotation with left-lateral slicing of the Andean orogen south of the Arica bend is one way to resolve this contradiction. The Coastal Scarp and the Atacama Fault zone are the most prominent features with clear traces of activity within the leading edge of continental South America. The great length and parallelism of these features with the subduction zone suggest that they may interact with the subduction interface at depth. We interpret the Coastal Scarp to be a west-dipping normal fault or flexure and propose that it is located over an east-dipping ramp stack at the subduction interface. The similar flexure at the western edge of the Altiplano may have the same origin. Ramp stacking along the subduction zone, a mechanism disregarded so far, may be an important thickening process in the Andes and perhaps the basic cause of the uplift of the Altiplano. © 1990.