Malvinas Basin

Malvinas Basin
Cuenca de Malvinas
Coordinates	51°30′S 63°30′W / 51.500°S 63.500°W / -51.500; -63.500
Etymology	Islas Malvinas
Location	Argentine Shelf, Southern Atlantic
Region	Patagonia
Country	Argentina  United Kingdom
State(s)	Santa Cruz Province Falkland Islands
Characteristics
On/Offshore	Offshore
Boundaries	(W) Scotia-South American plate boundary (S)
Part of	Circum-Atlantic basins
Area	~180,000 km2 (69,000 sq mi)
Hydrology
Sea(s)	Southern Atlantic Ocean
Geology
Basin type	Rift basin
Orogeny	Break-up of Pangea
Age	Early Jurassic-Holocene
Stratigraphy	Stratigraphy
Field(s)	non-commercial

The Malvinas Basin (Spanish: Cuenca de Malvinas) is a major sedimentary basin in the Argentine Shelf offshore southern Patagonia. The basin borders to the west with the that separates it from the Magallanes Basin.^[1] The southern boundary is formed by the Scotia plate boundary.^[2] Contrary to the neighbouring North Falkland and Magallanes Basins, the Malvinas Basin is not known to have commercial hydrocarbon reserves.^[3]

Tectonic history[]

The Malvinas Basin started to form with the break-up of Pangea since the Early Jurassic.

Stratigraphy[]

Though poorly understood due to the lack of well data, several formations were identified in the basin on the basis of 2D seismic, of which some also crop out in onshore Patagonia and the Austral Basin:^[4]

See also[]

• List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in the Falkland Islands
• Geology of the Falkland Islands
• Golfo San Jorge Basin
• Antarctic Peninsula

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Baristeas, N.; Z. Anka; R. di Primio; J.F. Rodríguez; D. Marchal, and F. Dominguez. 2013. New insights into the tectono-stratigraphic evolution of the Malvinas Basin, offshore of the southernmost Argentinean continental margin. Tectonophysics 604. 280–295. Accessed 2018-09-06.
• Foschi, Martino, and Joseph Albert Cartwright. s.a. South Malvinas/Falkland Basin: hydrocarbon migration and petroleum system, 1–53. _. Accessed 2018-09-06.
• Gallardo, Rocío E. 2014. Seismic sequence stratigraphy of a foreland unit inthe [sic] Magallanes-Austral Basin, Dorado Riquelme Block, Chile: Implications for deep-marine reservoirs. Latin American Journal of Sedimentology and Basin Analysis, Asociación Argentina de Sedimentología 1221. 49–64. Accessed 2018-09-06.