A major provenance change in sandstones from the Tezoatlán basin, southern Mexico, controlled by Jurassic, sinistral normal motion along the Salado River fault: Implications for the reconstruction of Pangea

In this work, we present sedimentological and petrological data that document a major provenance change within the Jurassic stratigraphic record exposed in the Tezoatlán basin, southern Mexico. We interpret this provenance change as the result of exhumation of Paleozoic metamorphic rocks of the Acatlán Complex along the Salado River fault, which is a WNW-trending sinistral normal fault that bounds the Tezoatlán basin to the north. Our U-Pb detrital zircon ages integrated with previous biostratigraphic data bracket the age of the Salado River fault between ∼179 and ∼170 Ma. Therefore, we reaffirm that sinistral normal block motion along WNW-trending faults took place in southern Mexico during Jurassic time as predicted by some previous geodynamic reconstructions of Pangea breakup.