Research

The foreland and the transition to the Andean orogen interior is characterized by ongoing, yet highly diachronous and spatially disparate tectonism, in addition to pronounced contrasts in relief, rainfall, and erosion. Taken together, these characteristics make this region an outstanding natural laboratory to study surface processes and their tectonic and climatic forcing factors that impact the source-to-sink system on multiple spatiotemporal scales.

Our study addresses the complex relationships between tectonics, climate, erosion, sediment deposition, and the environmental conditions prone to the generation, migration, and accumulation of hydrocarbon resources and metallogenesis.

Consequently, our principal research goals are encapsulated in four workpackage themes that comprise the individual PhD thesis topics:

  • WP1: Climate-tectonic impacts on surface processes
  • WP2: Interplay between tectonics & inherited crustal inhomogeneities
  • WP3: Basin modeling and georesource formation
  • WP4: Metallogenesis of metal deposits an felsic magmas at different crustal levels

In light of future predicted impacts of Global Change on patterns and intensity of rainfall, coupled orogen-foreland systems constitute areas with important societal challenges over the next several decades, particularly with respect to the combined effects of seismicity, increasingly common hydro-meteorological extreme events, changes in sediment transport systems and the quest for economic resources.