The Piendamó Fault ( es, Falla de Piendamó) is an oblique dextral
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 a variable average north to south strike of 341.6 ± 18 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 Piendamó, Cauca.Paris et al., 2000a, p.23
Description
The Piendamó Fault is part of Romeral Fault System in southwestern Colombia. The fault is located at the base of the mountain front of the western slope of the Central Ranges, north of the city of Popayán. The fault displaces volcanic
pyroclastic
Pyroclastic rocks (derived from the el, πῦρ, links=no, meaning fire; and , meaning broken) are clastic rocks composed of rock fragments produced and ejected by explosive volcanic eruptions. The individual rock fragments are known as pyroc ...
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 ...
Popayán Formation. It forms an outstanding topographic and tectonic block bounded by two intersecting faults.
The fault forms an outstanding prismatic-tectonic mountain block composed of pyroclastic flow and ash-fall deposits. This block is bounded by two well developed fault scarps of about height; one facing west-southwest and the other facing south-southwest. There is geomorphic evidence of scarp degradation and old
landslide
Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...
s on the face of these scarps. Deep canyons cut about into scarps formed against a flat-topped high mountain. Several close fault lines parallel the west-southwest-facing scarp. The high Piendamó scarp is one of the largest for neotectonic Quaternary faults in western Colombia.
Rosas-Julumito Fault
The Rosas-Julumito Fault ( es, Falla de Rosas-Julumito) is an oblique dextral strike-slip fault in the department of Cauca in southwestern Colombia. The fault is part of the megaregional Romeral Fault System and has a total length of and runs al ...