Cenozoic deformation in the George V Land continental margin (East Antarctica)

The tectonic structure in the George V Land sector presented in this study is two-fold with two rift phases: one being connected to the breakup process and the later one associated to a change in plate rotation. A former extensional phase opened structural grabens, with axis oriented WNW-ESE and possibly NE-SW. A latter transpressional phase reactivated previous structures and tilted, faulted and folded sedimentary strata, located in the inner continental shelf. The first tectonic phase is likely related with the Cretaceous rifting between the Antarctic and Australian plates. The second tectonic phase might be related to the onset of the fast spreading phase of Pacific-Indian Ocean, that caused uplift, inversion and folding of post-rift strata in a narrow east-west oriented region, near coastal basement outcrop, in Paleocene-Eocene times.