Research projects in Latin America

My research activities over the past fifteen years in Latin America were focused on the Northern and Central Andes in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. In addition I have worked on projects in southern Brazil, Argentina, and northern Mexico. The objective of many of these past and current projects are on a) studying long-term exhumation of the Northern and Central Andes under different plate-tectonic and climatic conditions, b) advancing analytical techniques in detrital thermochronology; c) studying batholith exhumation either during basin and Range extension in the Sonora Range, northern Mexico, or eorsional exhumation in the Central Cordillera of Colombia and d) and fostering international collaborations with Latin American researchers through training, lectures and joint Ph.D. and Master research projects.

Many of my projects were funded through BQR-Sud and LabEx2020 grants at ISTerre, but I also received funding through ECOS-Nord, Colciencias - ICETEX and Conacit and the CNRS (delegation and PICS).


Study areas and sub-projects NORTHERN ANDES

Colombia

Since 2010 I maintain research collaborations with the Geology department at the Universidad EAFIT in Medellín and the Colombian Geological Survey (former INGEOMINAS) at Bogotá. In both places I installed FT laboratories with the identical microscope systems as I have in Grenoble, to allow for an intercalibration between the labs for quality control. I started with the training of Colombian researchers and students in Medellín and Bogotá and I currently maintain an ECOS-NORD exchange program (2012-2014) with the Universidad EAFIT. I gave a 4-day workshop on thermochronology in Bogotá in 2010, an event which will be repeated in 2013 in connection with the Colombian Geological Congress in Bogotá, and I organized the first thermochronology session at the 14th Latin American Geological Congress in Medellín in 2011. Both Colombian FT laboratories are now fully functional and about ten Ph.D. and Master student projects in the Western, Central and Eastern Cordillera of Colombia are currently under way, mainly with students from the Universidad Nacional at Bogotá and Universidad EAFIT at Medellín. From February 1st 2013 to July 31st 2013 I spent my sabbatical leave in Bogotá and Medellín and continued with the advising, training and teaching of Colombian students and researchers in thermochronology.

1. Determining the geological and thermal history of the Amagá coal basin in Colombia 2011-2017

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2011 and ECOS-Nord

The target basin of this study is the Amagá coal basin, located between the Western and Central Cordillera in Colombia, south-west of Medellín. Based on pollen data, the evolution of the basin started in the Late Oligocene. The basin is filled to the most part by fluvial deposits of the Late Oligocene to mid-Late Miocene Amagá Formation, which in turn is overlain by Late Miocene volcanic and volcaniclastic deposits of the Combia Formation and intruded by Late Miocene porphyritic andesite intrusions (Silva et al., 2008).

The Amagá basin is of economic interest because of its sub-bituminous to anthracite grade coal and coal-gas reserves (e.g. Blandon et al., 2008; Lopez and Ward, 2008). However, despite extensive sedimentological, stratigraphic and vitrinite reflectance work, the thermal history and the formation of coal and coal bed methane in this basin remains poorly constrained and the influence of late Miocene volcanism on the thermal evolution of the basin and coal and coal-gas formation is not well known.

Therefore, the objective of this study is to understand the timing and thermal conditions of the coal and coal-gas formation in the Amagá basin. The underlying question is it caused by volcanic heating the coal formation or is it because of burial heating alone? The preserved total thickness of the Amagá Formation is only about 500-600 m. Thermal history modeling can provide a plausible answer to this question. The available stratigraphic information and the thermal constraints from the already available and new vitrinite reflectance data combined with the new thermochronological data will be the input parameters for the thermal history modeling. This project is a subproject of a drilling campaign for coal gas exploration in the Cauca Valley basins, funded by the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos (ANH) of Colombia. In 2011 ANH invested over 3 million Euros in this project for developing 15 drill sites, seven of them within the Amagá basin. Drilling started in March 2011 and available drill cores have been analyzed with fission-track and vitrinite reflectance analysis. The results will have implications on the interpretation of the thermal history of the basin, basin inversion and the tectonic evolution of the Western and Central Cordillera in Colombia

Results of this study have been published in:

Piedrahita, V.A., Bernet, M., Chadima, M., Sierra, G.M., Marin-Ceron, M.I., and Toro, G.E., 2017, Detrital zircon fission-track thermochronology and magnetic fabric of the Amagá Formation (Colombia) : intracontinental deformation and exhumation events in the northwestern Andes. Sedimentary Geology, v. 356, p. 26-42.

The team of researchers from EAFIT University at Medellín is fully involved in the main project. I have been advising the Geology department at Universidad EAFIT in the development of their doctorate program, which has been approved by the Colombian Ministry of Education in 2013. A Master research project (Juliana Mesa Garcia) under joint supervision started in spring 2013 and was supported by the funding for the following project:

2. Volcanic activity and crustal growth in the Colombian Andes. 2013-2014

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2014 and ECOS-Nord

The objective of this project was 1) the detailed dating of basalt and pyroclastic series of the Combia Formation in the Amaga basin, located between the Central and Western Cordillera in Colombia and 2) their geochemical and isotopic characterization to determine the cause and manner of formation of volcanic rocks. This information is essential to better understand the evolution of the western margin of South America and the complex interactions between tectonic plates Farallon, Caribbean and South America. The originality of this project lies in the combination of geochemical and isotopic analyzes in combination with paleomagnetic dating of basaltic rocks and detrital thermochronolgy of sedimentary rocks affected by the volcanic Combia Formation. Currently two manuscripts are in preparation for the publication of the results.

Results of this study have been published in:

Bernet, M., Mesa Garcia, J.*, Chauvel, C., Ramírez Londoño, M.J., and Marin-Ceron, M.I., 2020, Thermochronological, petrographic and geochemical characteristics of the Combia Formation, Amagá basin, Colombia. Journal of South American Earth Sciences , v. 104, 102897, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102897

3. Exhumation of the metamorphic Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, northern Colombia, (Alejandro Piraquive, Université Grenoble Alpes and UNAL Bogotá, Ph.D. 2014-2017 thesis)

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2015

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia is a triangular block that hosts the highest coastal mountains on Earth, where an imbricated lower crustal section is exposed capped by nested plutons and a volcanic sequence of a Jurassic to Early Cretaceous arc. This exceptionally thick crustal section forms the upper plate of a continent-ward dipping main suture that is underlain by strongly sheared platform sediments and transitional basement rocks of a lower plate. The objective of this project was to determine the cooling and exhumation history of this crustal sections, for better understanding the timing of the deformation history of the Maracaibo block, the northern South American plate and the Caribbean plate. This was done by fission-track analysis of apatite and zircon and thermal history modelling.

Results of this study have been published in:

Piraquive, A.*, Kammer, A., Bernet, M., Cramer, T., von Quadt, A., and Gómez, C., 2021, Neoproterozoic to Jurassic tectono-metamorphic events in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Massif, Colombia: insights from zircon U-Pb geochronology and trace element geochemistry. International Geology Review , https://doi.org/10.1080/00206814.2021.1961317

Piraquive, A.*, Kammer, A., Gómez, C., Bernet, M., Muñoz, J.A., Quintero, C.A., Laurent, O., and Von Quadt, A., 2021, Middle-Late Triassic metamorphism of the Guajira peninsula basement; Insights from zircon U-Pb and Lu-Hf systematics. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, v., 103397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2021.103397

Gómez, C.*, Kammer, A., Bernet, M., Piraquive, A., von Quadt, A., 2020, Late Triassic rift tectonics at the northernmost Andean margin (Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta). Journal of South American Earth Sciences, v. 104, 102897. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102897

Piraquive, A.*, Pinzon, E., Kammer, A., Bernet, M., and von Quadt, A., 2018, Early Neogene unroofing of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, as determined from detrital geo-thermochronology and the petrology of clastic basin sediments. Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol.130, 355-380. https://doi.org/10.1130/B31676.1.

4. Late-stage exhumation of the Arquía Complex, Central Cordillera, Colombian Andes)

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2016

The Arquiá complex in the Central Cordillera of Colombia is a metamorphic with prograde high-pressure and retro-grade amphibolite to greenschist facies metamorphic rocks. For better understanding the tectonic evolution of this metamorphic complex and particularly the late cooling history during exhumation of the Central Cordillera we collected 30 samples across a 12 km E-W profile, with samples from 1100 m to 2400 m elevation. The objective was to analyse the samples with fission-track analysis and to use the age, Dpar and track-length data for thermal history modelling.

5. Source-to-sink relationship between the northern Santander Massif and the Nuevo Mundo syncline, Colombia)

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2017

The erosional exhumation of the northern Santander Massif in Colombia contributed to the Cenozoic filling of the Middle Magdalena Valley basin and the development of significant conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reserves during that time. Nonetheless, the source-to-sink relationships in this context are not known. We will use apatite and zircon fission-track analysis on 20 samples collected along an elevation (440 to 3300 m) and a basin stratigraphic profile (early Paleogene to late Neogene deposits of the northern Nuevo Mundo syncline) for determining source area and basin thermal histories related to exhumation and burial through PeCube modelling.

Results of this study and related projects have been published in:

Amaya–Ferreira, S., Zuluaga, C.A., and Bernet, M., 2020, Different levels of exhumation across the Bucaramanga Fault in the Cepitá area of the southwestern Santander Massif, Colombia: Implications for the tectonic evolution of the northern Andes in northwestern South America. In: Gómez, J. & Mateus–Zabala, D. (editors), The Geology of Colombia, Volume 3 Paleogene – Neogene . Servicio Geológico Colombiano, Publicaciones Geológicas Especiales 37, p. 689–727. Bogotá. https://doi.org/10.32685/pub.esp.37.2019.17

Urueña–Suárez, C.L., Peña–Urueña, M.L., Muñoz–Rocha, J.A., Rayo–Rocha, L.P., Villamizar–Escalante, N., Amaya–Ferreira, S., Ibanez–Mejia, M., and Bernet, M., 2020, Zircon U–Pb and fission–track dating applied to resolving sediment provenance in modern rivers draining the Eastern and Central Cordilleras, Colombia. In: Gómez, J. & Mateus–Zabala, D. (editors), The Geology of Colombia, Volume 3 Paleogene – Neogene . Servicio Geológico Colombiano, Publicaciones Geológicas Especiales 37, p. 635–687. Bogotá. https://doi.org/10.32685/pub.esp.37.2019.16

6. (U-Th)/He thermochronology and characterization of serpentinites in the Northern Andes of Colombia)

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2022 and COLCIENCIAS grant71555
Caracterización de serpentinitas en Colombia y análisis de su relación con procesos sísmicos y volcánicos recientes
Convocatoria: 852-2019

The Northern Andes of Colombia hold the long-term record of the geological evolution of the northwestern South American plate. Evidence of a long-lasting subduction related arc volcanism during the Jurassic and from the Late Cretaceous to today is well exposed in the present-day Central Cordillera. Former suture zones and evidence of ancient subduction zones are preserved in the wide range of serpentinite outcrops throughout the Western and Central Cordillera, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Guajira.

Since 2021 I am participating in a collaborative research project with colleagues from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the Servicio Geologico Colombiano in Bogotá, which was funded by COLCINECIAS. The objective of this project is the characterization of serpentinites in Colombia and analysis of their relationship with recent seismic and volcanic processes, including (U-Th)/He dating of magnetite and spinel in collaboration with ISTerre, and prospecting for hydrogen anomalies. Fieldwork for sampling was done in July 2022.

Venezuela

Discrimination of recent tectonic events and their relation to climate in the Orinoco River basin, Venezuela, by fission track thermochronology of detrital minerals, palynology and molecular biology. 2013-2017

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR BLANC Grant 2012

In recent years I have been working in the Venezuelan Andes in the framework of Maurico Bermúdez’s Ph.D. thesis in Grenoble 2006-2009 (see Bermúdez et al., 2010, 2011, 2012 and in review). We continued this work in the spring orf 2013 studying the interactions between tectonic convergence, surface processes (erosion and sediment transport by rivers), surface uplift, climate and biodiversity on the southern flank of the Venezuelan Andes and the northern flank of the Guyana shield craton. This area is drained by the Orinoco River and its main tributaries. We will integrate different thermochronologic techniques, palynology and molecular biology in this interdisciplinary. The FT analyses of detrital apatite and zircon from the samples collected in the Orinoco River drainage system in 2013, are used to determine peak and catchment area mean exhumation rates. This work was done in the FT laboratories in Caracas and Grenoble. In addition, U-Pb of zircon on the same samples were done in collaboration with LA-ICP-MS lab of the Servicio Geologico Colombiano in Bogotá, Colombia.


Peru

Diachronic exhumation along- and across-strike of the Andes of Peru, 2011-2014
(Mélanie Noury, Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, Ph.D. thesis)

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2012 awarded to Thierry Sempere and by an MLD IRD awarded to Melanie Noury

The Central Andes are an outstanding orogen because its crust reaches a thickness of over 70 km, which is not the result of a simple continent-continent collision. The Andes of Peru are a key segment for understanding the mountain building processes that caused such considerable crustal thickness, because the orogenic volume markedly decreases from south to north along this segment.

Results of this study have been published in:

Noury, M.*, Philippon, M., Bernet, M., Paquette, J.-L., and Sempere, T., 2017, Geological record of flat slab induced extension in the Southern Peruvian forearc. Geology, v. 45, p. 723-726. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1130/G38990.1

Noury, M.*, Bernet, M., Schildgen, T.F., Simon-Labric, T., Philippon, M., and Sempere, T., 2016, Crustal-scale block tilting during Andean trench-parallel extension : structural and geo-thermochronological insights, Tectonics, v. 35, p. 2052-2069


Southern Brazil

This was a collaboration with Christie Engelmann de Oliveira and Andrea Ritter Jelinek at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) at Porto Alegre, Brazil, on the Camaqua basin in southern Brazil.

Results of this study have been published in:

Engelmann de Oliveira, C.H., Ritter Jelinek, A., Timoteo, D., and Bernet, M., 2018, Thermotectonic history of the Maastrichtian reservoir in Campos Basin, Marine and Petroleum Geology , v. 93, p. 331–343.

Engelmann de Oliveira, C.H.,* Ritter Jelinek, A., Chemale Jr., F., and Bernet, M., 2016, Evidence of post-Gondwana breakup in Southern Brazilian Shield : insights from apatite and zircon fission track thermochronology. Tectonophysics , v. 666, p. 173-187.


Northern Mexico

Thermal evolution of granitc plutons during last stage Basin and Range extension in the Sonora, Mexico

This project was supported by an ISTerre BQR SUD Grant 2013

The Sonora granitic plutons of northern Mexico formed during the Laramide orogeny between 75-55 Ma, related to magmatism during North America-Farallon plate subduction. These plutonic rocks were exhumed during a long-lived phase of Basin-and-Range extension, starting in the Late Oligocene to early Miocene and lasting up to Pliocene/Pleistocene times. While such extension caused very rapid exhumation and cooling of upper crustal rocks west of the Colorado Plateau in southwestern North America (see Bernet, 2009 and references therein), first results from the Sonora plutons of this study indicate a different scenario in northern Mexico. In this project, we try reconstructing the cooling history of these rocks by using AFT analysis (age dating, track-lengths and Dpar measurements), as well as available zircon U-Pb, feldspar and biotite Ar-Ar, and biotite and hornblende K-Ar ages (Ramos-Velazquez et al., 2008; Roldan-Quintana et al., 2009), and previously published AFT and zircon fission-track (ZFT) ages (Calmus et al., 1999). The new AFT data and the other available thermochronologic information will be included in HeFTy time-temperature modeling for refining the thermal evolution of the Sonora granitic plutons and the Neogene tectonic evolution of the Sonora. The challenge is distinguishing in the cooling history post-magmatic cooling from exhumation related cooling of these rocks.

Results of this study have been published in:

Calmus, T., Bernet, M., Lugo-Zazueta, R., Hardwick, E., and Mendivil-Quijada, H., 2015, Apatite fission-track thermochronology of Laramide plutonic rocks in northwestern Mexico : Distinguishing Basin and Range extension versus Gulf of California rifting,in Sesión Especial "50 años de geocronología en México", Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas , v. 32 (3), p. 529-541.

Relations between horizontal subduction, exhumation and formation of giant copper porphyries: thermochronological study of the Sonora deposits, Mexico

This project is supported by a DGAPA-UNAM postdoctoral grant for Melanie Noury and Perumex Grupo Mexico

This project is focused on using LA-ICP-MS double dating of apatite and zircon and Al in Hornblende geo-barometrie to study the formation and exhumation of giant porphyry copper deposits in the Sonra, northern Mexico. This is a joint academic - industrial project.


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© Matthias Bernet, Université Grenoble Alpes, 38058 Grenoble Cedex 9, FRANCE

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Last Revised By : Matthias Bernet, April 2023