The Eastern Cordillera of Colombia is key to understanding the role of inherited basement anisotropies in the evolution of active noncollisional mountain belts. In particular, the Rio Blanco–Guatiquía region of the Eastern Cordillera is exemplary in displaying a variety of phenomena that document the importance of the orientation, geometry, and segmentation of preorogenic anisotropies. We document the first unambiguous evidence that extensional basement structures played an important role in determining the locus of deformation during contractional reactivation in the Eastern Cordillera. Detailed structural field mapping and analysis of industry seismic reflection profiles have helped to identify the inherited San Juanito, Naranjal, and Servitá normal faults and associated transfer faults as important structures that were inverted during the Cenozoic Andean orogeny. Apparently, the more internal faults in the former rift basin were not properly oriented for an efficient reactivation in contraction. However, these faults have a fundamental role as strain risers, as folding is concentrated west of them. In contrast, reactivated normal faults such as the more external Servitá fault are responsible for uplifting the eastern flank of the Eastern Cordillera. In addition, these structures are adjacent and intimately linked to the development of thin‐skinned faults farther east. In part, the superimposed compression in this prestrained extensional region is compensated by lateral escape. The dominant presence of basement involved buckling and thrusting, and the restricted development of thin‐skinned thrusting in this inversion orogen makes the Eastern Cordillera a close analog to the intraplate Atlas Mountains of Morocco and other inverted sectors of the Andean orogen farther south.

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