Andean orogeny

The prolonged mountain-building process along South America’s western margin, driven chiefly by oceanic plate subduction, crustal deformation, magmatism, and uplift.

Nazca Plate: An oceanic tectonic plate beneath the eastern Pacific that subducts beneath western South America. Its descent beneath South America supplies the main tectonic driver of Andean mountain building.
Andean tectonic evolution: The changing plate interactions, deformation, and magmatism that shaped the Andes through geological time. This history tracks how the mountain belt developed rather than treating it as a single event.
Plate tectonics: The theory that Earth’s lithosphere is divided into moving plates whose interactions shape its surface. The orogen is a continental-scale result of converging lithospheric plates.
Andean volcanism: Volcanic activity along the Andes, concentrated in segments above the subducting Nazca and Antarctic plates. It is a direct surface expression of subduction-related magmatism in the orogen.
Central Andean Plateau: The elevated plateau region of the central Andes, including the Altiplano and Puna. Its exceptional elevation records large-scale thickening and uplift in the orogen.
Peru–Chile Trench: A deep ocean trench marking the convergent boundary where the Nazca Plate descends beneath South America. The trench marks the offshore plate boundary feeding subduction beneath the Andes.
Gondwana: A southern supercontinent that existed before its fragments separated into present-day continents. The Andean margin formed along the western edge of South America as part of Gondwana.
Subduction: The descent of one tectonic plate beneath another into Earth’s mantle at a convergent boundary. Subduction establishes the forces and melting processes behind the Andean margin.
Andean earthquakes: Earthquakes associated with plate-boundary slip and crustal faulting along the Andes and adjacent margin. The active tectonic system that built the mountains continues to generate seismic hazards.
Puna Plateau: A high-elevation plateau in the southern central Andes of Argentina and Chile. Its uplift and internal basins express the varied deformation of the central Andes.

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