The Palestina Fault ( es, Falla de Palestina) is a regional sinistral

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) * Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry *Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...

thrust fault A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. If ...

in the departments of Antioquia, Caldas and Bolívar in 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 has a total length of and runs along an average north-northeast to south-southwest

strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

of 017.8 ± 11 along 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 Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

Description

The Palestina Fault extends from the

Serranía de San Lucas The Serranía de San Lucas is a forested massif in the Bolívar Department of northern Colombia that reaches heights of 2,600m above sea level. It is part of the Magdalena-Urabá moist forests ecoregion, with a rainforest ecology that includes larg ...

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 Antioquia in the north,Buitrago et al., 2014, p. 27 to the

Nevado del Ruiz The Nevado del Ruiz (), also known as La Mesa de Herveo ( en, Mesa of Herveo, the name of the nearby town) is a volcano on the border of the departments of Caldas and Tolima in Colombia, about west of the capital city Bogotá. It is a strat ...

volcanic zone in the south. The Otú Norte and Bagre Norte Faults splay off the Palestina Fault.Buitrago et al., 2014, p. 26 It mainly extends along the eastern slope of 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.Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

crystalline

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...

s and, in lesser amounts,

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

plutonic rock Intrusive rock is formed when magma penetrates existing rock, crystallizes, and solidifies underground to form '' intrusions'', such as batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, and volcanic necks.Intrusive RocksIntrusive rocks accessdate: March ...

s. The oldest rocks are mainly in the western block, which elevates a probable

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

erosion surface whose eroded remnants are characterized by aligned flat narrow benches and spurs.Paris et al., 2000a, p. 29 The fault forms outstanding slope break between the western uplifted block and the eastern

peneplain 390px, Sketch of a hypothetical peneplain formation after an orogeny. In geomorphology and geology, a peneplain is a low-relief plain formed by protracted erosion. This is the definition in the broadest of terms, albeit with frequency the usage ...

surface. In the western block, there are flat bench-like remnants of a

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

erosion surface. The fault zone is characterized by

fault scarp A fault scarp is a small step or offset on the ground surface where one side of a fault has moved vertically with respect to the other. It is the topographic expression of faulting attributed to the displacement of the land surface by movement al ...

s, saddles, linear ridges, displaced streams, shutter ridges, and aligned springs. Some topographic features show evidence of sinistral offset. Locally, two fault traces bound a depressed block (

pull-apart basin In geology, a basin is a region where subsidence generates accommodation space for the deposition of sediments. A pull-apart basin is a structural basin where two overlapping (en echelon) strike-slip faults or a fault bend creates an area of cru ...

). Based on stratigraphic evidence, dextral movement of about is reported, which probably occurred before

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 ...

time. However, the Quaternary movement is believed to be sinistral. Before Miocene time, most of the faults of northern and western Colombia probably had dextral movement.Paris et al., 2000a, p. 30 The main

volcanoes A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

, Nevado de Santa Isabel and

Nevado El Cisne The Nevado El Cisne ( en, The Snowy Swan) is a volcano in the Cordillera Central (Colombia), Central Ranges of the Andes in Colombia. Its summit is at an altitude of . The mountain is one of the five lava domes of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano comp ...

are located above the fault.Mejía et al., 2012, p. 30Plancha 225, 1998González, 2001, p. 50

Description

See also

References

Bibliography

Maps

Further reading