Decoupling external forcings during the development of Miocene fluvial stratigraphy of the North Patagonian Foreland

The Patagonian Andean foreland system includes several intermountain basins filled with a Miocene non-marine record deposited under syn-tectonic conditions related to the Andean uplift and a regional climate change triggered by a rain shadow effect. Many of those basins, such as the Collón Cura basin in Neuquén Province, Argentina, present a well-preserved fluvial record (i.e. the Limay Chico Member of the Caleufú Formation). Sedimentological and palaeomagnetic studies have allowed the interpretation of coeval transverse distributary fan and axial mixed-load fluvial systems deposited between 10.6 ± 0.2 and 12.8 Ma. The basin infill arrangement shows that, while the axial mixed-load fluvial system exhibits an aggradational stacking pattern, the transverse distributary fluvial fan system denotes three different orders of stratigraphic patterns: (i) large-scale progradation of the transverse fluvial fan system over a time scale of 106 year; (ii) intermediate-scale progradational–retrogradational transverse intra-basinal fluvial fan episodes over a time scale of 105 year; and (iii) small-scale transverse lobe progradation over a time scale of 105–104 year. These patterns were interpreted as transverse sediment flux variations triggered by variable external forcings. To decouple those forcings, we estimated the Collón Cura basin equilibrium time at 3–5 × 105 year and compared it with the time scale over which different external forcings varied in the Patagonian Andean and foreland regions during Miocene times. Large-scale progradation is linked to an increase in sediment flux triggered by a long-term tectonically driven exhumation forcing associated with the Miocene Patagonian Andean contractional phase. Intermediate-scale progradational–retrogradational episodes are linked to variations in sediment flux due to a mid-term tectonic forcing associated with the western fault system activity. The small-scale fan lobe progradation is related to increases in sediment flux triggered by indistinguishable short-term autogenic processes and/or high-frequency tectonic and climatic forcings. This contribution shows the applicability and limitations of the basin equilibrium time concept to decouple external forcings from the geological record, considering their magnitude, nature and time scale, as well as the basin characteristics.