page_title: Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault
section_title: Tectonic setting
hierarchical_section_title: Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault / Tectonic setting
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte des plaques tectoniques des caraïbes English: Map of plate tectonics in the Caribbean region
context_page_description: The Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault or Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault System is a major oblique transpressional sinistral strike-slip fault in the departments of Magdalena, Cesar, Norte de Santander and Santander in northern Colombia. The fault system is composed of two main outcropping segments, named Santa Marta and Bucaramanga Faults, and an intermediate Algarrobo Fault segment in the subsurface. The system has a total length of 674 kilometres and runs along an average north-northwest to south-southeast strike of 341 ± 23 from the Caribbean coast west of Santa Marta to the northern area of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes.
  The fault system is a major bounding fault for various sedimentary basins and igneous and metamorphic complexes. The northern Santa Marta Fault segment separates the Sinú-San Jacinto Basin and Lower Magdalena Valley in the west from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to the east. The buried Algarrobo Fault segment forms the boundary between the Lower Magdalena Valley and northern Middle Magdalena Valley to the west and the Cesar-Ranchería Basin in the east.
context_section_description: The Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault system is located in northwestern South America, on the North Andes Plate, where the 20 ± 2 millimetres (0.787 ± 0.079 in)/yr east to southeastward moving Caribbean, 60 mm (2.4 in)/yr eastward subducting Malpelo, and South American Plates converge. Since Early Mesozoic times, the western portion of Colombia was subjected to different episodes of subduction, accretion and collision, at the boundaries of the South America continental and the oceanic Farallon, Nazca, and Caribbean Plates and various island arcs. The interaction of the plate tectonic movements formed the Northern Andean Block, separated from the Maracaibo Block by the Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault. The Northern Andean Block is subdivided into tectonic realms, with the Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault separating the Central Continental Sub-plate Realm in the west from the Maracaibo Sub-plate Realm in the east. It has been suggested that these two realms are dominated by respectively Nazca and Caribbean Plate subduction. The compressional stress regime caused the formation of the oblique sinistral Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault and dextral Oca and Boconó Faults.
  The interplay between the Santa Marta and Oca Faults produced offshore Caribbean platforms and valleys north of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta near Taganga. Uplift along the western margin of the Santa Marta Fault probably commenced in the Pliocene.
  The Bucaramanga Fault intersects with the Boconó Fault at the Santander Massif. In this area, the top of the subducting slab has been estimated at an initial depth of approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi), then a horizontal part for about 50 kilometres (31 mi), and a farther descending section to reach a depth of around 200 kilometres (120 mi). The slab section, called Bucaramanga slab, here has a dip that continues to the oceanic crust of the Caribbean seafloor. Towards the north of the Bucaramanga Nest or Swarm, in a north-south area approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) in length, a well-defined Wadati-Benioff Zone extending to 175 kilometres (109 mi) depth has been identified.
caption: The tectonic history of the Bucaramanga-Santa Marta Fault, separating the Northern Andean from the Maracaibo Block (shown together as ND), is influenced by the interaction of the Malpelo, South American and Caribbean Plates
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