page_title: Cañadón Asfalto Basin
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Cañadón Asfalto Basin / Description
caption_attribution_description: Español: Paisaje a la entrada de Gastre, Chubut, Argentina
context_page_description: The Cañadón Asfalto Basin is an irregularly shaped sedimentary basin located in north-central Patagonia, Argentina. The basin stretches from and partly covers the North Patagonian Massif in the north, a high forming the boundary of the basin with the Neuquén Basin in the northwest, to the Cotricó High in the south, separating the basin from the Golfo San Jorge Basin. It is located in the southern part of Río Negro Province and northern part of Chubut Province. The eastern boundary of the basin is the North Patagonian Massif separating it from the offshore Valdés Basin and it is bound in the west by the Patagonian Andes, separating it from the small Ñirihuau Basin.
  The basin started forming in the Early Jurassic, with the break-up of Pangea and the creation of the South Atlantic, when extensional tectonics, including rifting, formed several basins in eastern South America and southwestern Africa. The accommodation space in the Cañadón Asfalto Basin was filled by volcanic, fluvial and lacustrine deposits in various geologic formations, separated by unconformities related to transtensional and transpressional tectonic forces.
context_section_description: The Cañadón Asfalto Basin was not defined as a separate sedimentary basin until the 1990s. Until then, the sediments deposited in the basin were considered part of the North Patagonian Massif. Homovc et al. (1991) and Figari & Courtade (1993) started defining the stratigraphic units in megasequences indicative of the evolution of a rift basin, resulting from the break-up of Pangea and Gondwana in particular.
  The basin has an irregular shape, comprising several depocenters defining sub-basins. The basin stretches from and partly covers the North Patagonian Massif in the north and east towards the Cotricó High to the south of the Paso del Sapo Sub-basin, separating the Cañadón Asfalto Basin from the Golfo San Jorge Basin in the south. In the west, the basin is bound by uplifted areas with the small Ñirihuau Basin.
  The area of the basin is sparsely populated, with Gastre and Paso del Sapo representing some of the few villages in the basin. The Chubut River crosses the basin in the south in the Altar Valley.
caption: View of Gastre, in the center of the basin
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