Active Folding of the Tame Anticline, Eastern Foothills, Colombian Andes

We integrate neotectonic mapping and interpretation of seismic reflection profiles to evaluate the kinematics of folding and development of the Quaternary Tame anticline and Cusiana fault at 6.5 N Latitude in the eastern foothills of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia. The Tame anticline is located approximately 660 km to the east of the Nazca-South America and 810 km to the south of the Caribbean-South America subduction zones plate boundaries in a retroarc foreland basin setting. The Tame anticline is an elongated, N15E trending structure, 14 km long N-S by 6 km wide E-W, that represents the most frontal active structure of the northern Colombian Andes. The Tame fold is related to the east-directed Cusiana fault that day lights to the south. Seismic reflection profiles indicate the Cusiana fault is a listric, west-dipping blind structure. The east flowing antecedent Macaguana creek has incised the Tame fold forming three prominent terrace levels, uplifted approximately 220, 150 and 100 meters, above current river levels. The surfaces were sampled for terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides using the depth profiling approach to account for inheritance. Surface exposure ages from the highest to lowest surfaces are 93.9, 50.8 and 32.4 kyrs at the 1σ level respectively, which were calculated using Monte Carlo methods. Trishear kinematic modeling was used to retrodeform the folding history and based on the surface abandonment ages, we will present shortening rates at millennial timescales.