Tectonophysics 366 (2003) 149 150 www.elsevier.

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Discussion

Reply to the Discussion to ProterozoicEarly Paleozoic evolution in western South Americaa discussion by Astini and Rapalini
Florencio G. Acenolaza a, Hubert Miller b,*, Alejandro J. Toselli a
a

Instituto Superior de Correlacion Geologica, Universidad Nacional de Tucuman, Miguel Lillo 205, 4000 San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina b Department of Geo- and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Luisenstrae 37, 80333 Munich, Germany Accepted 28 February 2003

We appreciate the comments by Astini and Rapalini to our paper. They help to clarify the difference between facts and hypotheses. Actually, it was not our intention to declare our idea as the only correct and infallible one, but to show that the facts can be interpreted differently to that so-called generally accepted way, i.e. that there is more than one hypothesis that is consistent with available evidence. Therefore, we called our paper a discussion and we are satisfied with its success. In this short reply, it is unnecessary to repeat all of our arguments for an alternative hypothesis to explain the Precordillera problem, but only to discuss some particular reproaches made by the commentators. Above all, we will not repeat our paleontological arguments, which served for documenting the possibility of a paleobiogeographical interpretation of the faunas in a way other than for a Laurentia Precordillera connection. Indeed, we cited only the majority of paleomagnetic publications that advocate a great distance between Laurentia from Gondwana in the Early Paleozoic. To us, this is strong evidence against a Laurentian provenance for the Precordillera, a hypothesis

* Corresponding author. Fax: +49-89-2180-6514. E-mail address: hubert.miller@iaag.geo.uni-muenchen.de (H. Miller).

that requires close proximity of Gondwana and Laurentia. Astini and Rapalini are correct in stating that paleomagnetism is unable to give unequivocal paleolongitude determinations. Thus, a position of the Precordillera, as indicated in Rapalini and Astini (1998, Fig. 8), close to Laurentia at 30j latitude is no more consistent with the evidence than our proposed close to Antarctica. Rapalini and Astini (1998) only demonstrate that the Precordillera is exotic to its present position. Their evidence does not prove a provenance from Laurentia. Commenting on the Grenville concept we repeat our opinion that it is necessary to distinguish between Grenville as a region, Grenville as a time concept and Grenville as a style of orogenic events and basement geochemistry. The Grenville orogeny is one of the most widespread events on Earth, corresponding to a re-organization of lithospheric plates. It is to be expected, in fact it has been documented, that similar crustal compositions and similar orogenic cycles repeatedly occur in different continents, as well as different compositions within the same continents. It is correct that strike slip movements of large extension in the Early Paleozoic of South America are poorly documented. However, there is strong evidence for them in the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic (Nemi et al., 2001), the Liquine Ofqui fault serves

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as a younger example, and the San Andreas fault serves as a modern model. Our interpretation of the time of docking has been misunderstood and our Fig. 9 may be unclear. We argue only that the final position of the Precordillera with respect to the Pampean hinterland was reached in the Devonian at the latest. The Early Devonian compressional deformation dated by Ho ckenreiner et al. (2001, 2002) for great shear zones east of the Famatina system is not necessarily identical with the final accretion of the Precordillera, but only shows that such compressional tectonics were common on the western border of Gondwana. Since our paper was published, Finney et al. (2003) have shown that ages of individual detrital zircon grains from the Cerro Totora Formation provide strong evidence for a Gondwanan province for early Cambrian sedimentary rocks of the Precordillera and no evidence for a Laurentian connection. The remarkable peak of zircon ages at about 500 600 Ma corresponds perfectly to the Pampean orogenic event which was active along the Proto-Pacific margin of Gondwana from South America through Antarctica olaza and Miller, 1982; Sollner et to Australia (Acen al., 2000). The purpose of our paper was to demonstrate that the evidence is perfectly consistent with another hypothesis than the common one. Our promotion of a Gondwanan hypothesis should not be interpreted as a criticism of colleagues who interpret the evidence in terms of the alternative Laurentian hypothesis.

Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge comments to the draft of this reply by J. Tait and S. Finney.

References
Acenolaza, F.G., Miller, H., 1982. Early Palaeozoic orogeny in southern South America. Precambrian Res. 17, 133 146. Finney, S., Gleason, J., Gehrels, G., Peralta, S., Acenolaza, G., 2003. Early Gondwanan connection for the Argentine Precordillera terrane. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 6476, 1 11. Hockenreiner, M., Sollner, F., Miller, H., 2001. The TIPA shear zone (NW-Argentina): evidence for Early Devonian movement verified by Sm Nd dating of garnet and whole rock systems. III. South American Symposium on Isotope Geology, Extended Abstracts Volume (CD). Sociedad Geologica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, pp. 574 576. Hockenreiner, M., Sollner, F., Miller, H., 2002. The TIPA shear zone (NW-Argentina): isotopic dating and geochemical processes. 5th International Symposium on Andean Geodynamics, Extended Abstracts. Institut de Recherche Pour le Developpement, Paris, pp. 303 306. Nemi, N.A., McQuarrie, N., Friedrich, A.M., Wernicke, B., Sengor, A.M.C., 2001. A large, subduction generated syntaxis in the Gondwanides of southern Gondwana-Land? Geol. Soc. Amer., Abstr. Progr. 33, A397. Rapalini, A.E., Astini, R.A., 1998. Paleomagnetic confirmation of the Laurentian origin of the Argentine Precordillera. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 155, 1 14. Sollner, F., Miller, H., Herve, M., 2000. An early Cambrian grano diorite age from the pre-Andean basement of Tierra del Fuego (Chile): the missing link between South America and Antarctica? J. South Am. Earth Sci. 13, 163 177.