The Montenegro Fault ( es, Falla de Montenegro) 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, ...
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 and runs along an average northwest to southeast strike of 025.1 ± 9 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.
Etymology
The fault is named after Montenegro, Quindío.Paris et al., 2000a, p.20
Description
The Montenegro Fault is part of the Romeral Fault System, running through the western slope of the Central Ranges. The fault is located to the west of the city of Armenia. The fault crosscuts and deforms the Pleistocene volcanic and volcano-sedimentary deposits of the Quindío Fan ( es, Abanico del Quindío), which covers about .
The Montenegro Fault forms outstanding fault scarps as much as in height, beheaded streams, hanging valleys, ponded alluvium, aligned and offset drainages, as well as soil and rock slides on the face of the scarps. The 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 ...
volcanic debris flows and ash deposits.Paris et al., 2000a, p.21 The Espejo River follows the strike of the Montenegro Fault.Mapa Geológico de Quindío, 2000