It is not known whether the Patagonian Orocline, the major bend of the southern Andes at the southern tip of South America, is a primary or secondary feature. Palaeomagnetic data along the Patagonian Orocline are still too scarce to provide a reliable and unambiguous answer to this question. New palaeomagnetic results on Late Jurassic–Late Cretaceous magmatic units along the central segment of the Fuegian Cordillera are reported. Data from four Late Cretaceous small intrusions and three sites on Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous metabasalts and metagabbros showed anticlockwise declination deviations between 21° and 46° with respect to South America. From these and previous data, a picture of a nearly homogeneous post-Late Cretaceous regional rotation of the central Fuegian Cordillera is suggested. This supports a model of nearly 30° of anticlockwise secondary bending of the Patagonian Orocline since the Late Cretaceous (72 Ma). Lack of rotation of post-50 Ma sedimentary rocks exposed to the north of our study region, and larger rotations (of c. 90°) reported to the south of it suggest that a geographical and/or temporal progression of rotation values from south to north in the Fuegian part of the Patagonian Orocline should be investigated.

Lago Chepelmut is a relatively small lake in size, of ellipsoidal shape, located in the outer fold-andthrust belt of the Fuegian Andes (southernmost South America). High-resolution single-channel seismic profiles, integrated with geological information in the surrounding area, have allowed to reconstruct for the first time a bathymetric map of the lake and the architecture, distribution and thickness of the sedimentary cover. Two main seismic units were identified in the seismic records: (i) a Lower Unit of glacial nature, likely associated to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and irregularly distributed through the basin, and (ii) an Upper Unit of lacustrine origin which drapes the entire basin. Submerged moraine deposits within the lake were also found from seismic data, and correlated with moraine arcs widespread distributed in the surroundings of the basin. These morphologies represent the recessional deposits left by the Ewan glacier lobe, one of the easternmost fronts of the Tierra del Fuego glaciers during the LGM. The lacustrine sedimentary record shows that the lake level was not constant through the recent history of the lake. Moreover, data analyses has shown that there is also an important structural component that has conditioned the evolution of the basin, in addition to that linked to glacial activity.