View of the arid mountains near Iquique ending abruptly in the Pacific Ocean.
The coastal cliff at La Portada near Antofagasta.

The Coastal Cliff of northern Chile (Spanish: Acantilado Costero) stretches over a length of more than 1000 km along the Atacama Desert. It makes up a large part of the western boundary to the Chilean Coast Range in the regions of Arica y Parinacota, Tarapacá, Antofagasta, and Atacama.[1] According to Roland Paskoff the modern cliff originated from a scarp retreat of a fault scarp, thus at present the cliff does not follow any fault.[2]

In some locations a series of coastal benches can be found below the cliff.[3] Despite alternating uplift and subsidence of the continent at a decadal timescale the cliff and the whole western edge of the South American plate has faced a long-term uplift during the last 2.5 million years.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Quezada, Jorge; Cerda, José Luis; Jensen, Arturo (2010). "Efectos de la tectónica y el clima en la configuración morfológica del relieve costero del norte de Chile". Andean Geology (in Spanish). 37 (1): 78–109. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  2. ↑ Paskoff, R. (1979). Sobre la Evolución Geomorfológica del gran acantilado costero del Norte Grande de Chile. Norte Grande (in Spanish). Universidad Católica de Chile, Instituto de Geografía, 6, 7-22.
  3. 1 2 Melnick, Daniel (2016). "Rise of the central Andean coast by earthquakes straddling the Moho". Nature Geoscience. 9 (5): 401–408. Bibcode:2016NatGe...9..401M. doi:10.1038/NGEO2683.


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