The Armenia Fault ( es, Falla de Armenia) is an oblique sinistral

strike-slip fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

in the

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Quindío in west-central

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. The fault is part of the megaregional

Romeral Fault System The Romeral Fault System ( es, Sistema de Fallas (de) Romeral) is a megaregional system of major parallel and anastomosing faults in the Cordillera Central (Colombia), Central Ranges of the Colombian Andes and the Cauca Basin, Cauca, Amagá Basin, ...

and has a total length of approximately and runs along an average northwest to southeast strike of 023.2 ± 11 in the

Central Ranges Central Ranges (code CER) is an Australian bioregion, with an area of 101,640.44 square kilometres (39,244 sq mi) spreading across two states and one territory: South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory.Andes. The fault shows Holocene activity with a surface rupture produced in 2001.

Etymology

The fault is named after Armenia, the capital of Quindío.Paris et al., 2000a, p.21

Description

The Armenia Fault is part of the Romeral Fault System on the western slope of the Central Ranges of the

n Andes. The fault crosses the city of Armenia and displaces Pliocene to Pleistocene volcanic and volcano-sedimentary deposits of the Quindío Fan ( es, Abanico del Quindío), which covers about . The geometric and neotectonic features of the Montenegro and Armenia Faults are very similar. The fault forms well-developed fault scarp as much as high, characterised by beheaded streams, ponded alluvium, aligned and offset drainages, soil and rock slides on the face of the scarp, and localised tilting of terrain. The Armenia Fault deforms

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

volcano-sedimentary debris flow and pyroclastic flow deposits. The valley of the Quindío River follows the strike of the Armenia Fault.Mapa Geológico de Quindío, 2000

Activity

The fault is considered active with Holocene tectonic movement. A trench opened in April 2001 near Circasia, about north of Armenia,Paris et al., 2000b indicating that the fault last movement is younger than 4,820 years (and probably less than 3,000 years) based on a previously dated bed of

lapilli Lapilli is a size classification of tephra, which is material that falls out of the air during a volcanic eruption or during some meteorite impacts. ''Lapilli'' (singular: ''lapillus'') is Latin for "little stones". By definition lapilli range f ...

that was erupted by the Machín volcano.Paris et al., 2000a, p.22 A maximum moment magnitude of 6.5 to 6.8 and a recurrence interval of 1000 years is estimated for this fault, based on the length of Quaternary rupture and displacement of topographic features at the fault.

References

Bibliography

Maps

* *