Patagonia is a region of South America that encompasses portions of Argentina and Chile and the Southern portion of the Andes Mountains. The Northern border is considered to be the Colorado and Barrancas rivers that drains into the Atlantic Ocean and on the Chilean side, the Reloncavi Estuary. The Southern border often includes Tierra del Fuego.
It gets its name from patagon, a word used by Ferdanand Magellen in 1520 meaning giants, to describe the indigenous people living there at that time who were taller than Europeans. It is also possible that it was because of footwear that they used that gave large footprints. These people were thought to be Tehuelches and they were nearly extinct after contact with the Europeans.
Geology of Patagonia
Chile sits on “The Ring of Fire” and spans four major tectonic plates, the Nazca, Scotia, South American and Antarctic. It is therefore a very active geologic area.
About 170 million years ago, the supercontinent of Pangea split apart to form a new supercontinent called Gondwana. Gondwana the split apart to form the continents as we know them today.
It gets its name from patagon, a word used by Ferdanand Magellen in 1520 meaning giants, to describe the indigenous people living there at that time who were taller than Europeans. It is also possible that it was because of footwear that they used that gave large footprints. These people were thought to be Tehuelches and they were nearly extinct after contact with the Europeans.
Geology of Patagonia
Chile sits on “The Ring of Fire” and spans four major tectonic plates, the Nazca, Scotia, South American and Antarctic. It is therefore a very active geologic area.
About 170 million years ago, the supercontinent of Pangea split apart to form a new supercontinent called Gondwana. Gondwana the split apart to form the continents as we know them today.
About 60 million years ago, the Nazca plate began to subduct under the South American plate and this caused an uplifting and folding of sedimentary rock to form the Andes Mountains to the east.
The Pleistocene epoch that was from 2,588,00 to 11,700 years ago, found the world in repeated glaciations and this shaped much of the Patagonian landscape as the glaciers advanced and retreated. Two large ice fields still remain and cover much of the tip of South America. These ice fields are the largest remaining contiguous extrasolar ice fields in the world.
The Pleistocene epoch that was from 2,588,00 to 11,700 years ago, found the world in repeated glaciations and this shaped much of the Patagonian landscape as the glaciers advanced and retreated. Two large ice fields still remain and cover much of the tip of South America. These ice fields are the largest remaining contiguous extrasolar ice fields in the world.
Patagonia contains some of the world’s best-preserved fossils in the sedimentary rock layers. https://www.interpatagonia.com/paleontologia/hallazgos_i.html