Comment on the paper "Puncoviscana folded belt in northwestern Argentina: testimony of Late Proterozoic Rodinia fragmentation and pre-Gondwana collisional episodes" by Omarini et al.
Abstract. Omarini et al. (1999) presented a petrogenetic model for the tectonic setting of the Puncoviscana belt in NW Argentina, based on new data for the Precambrian-Eocambrian stratigraphy and for geochemical data of volcanic rocks, intercalated in the Puncoviscana Formation. The authors interpreted the recent gravity field in view of the geological history of the area. In contrast to their opinion, which is strongly biased towards the terrane concept, we present a different view, which is based on radiometric age data and investigations of lithology and pressure–temperature (P–T) -data of the high-grade basement in NW Argentina and N Chile. In our concept, the area is best described as a mobile belt of Brasiliano age, which is adjacent to the Grenvillian cratonic Arequipa-Uyarani area in the north.