Recent geological and geophysical studies in the southern Andes adjacent to the intersection of the Chile Rise with the Peru‐Chile Trench (ANT‐NAZ‐SAM triple junction) have revealed a number of features and a Neogene geologic history that are unique along the Pacific margin of South America. This history includes (1) development of a Tertiary‐Quaternary marine basin with up to 3 km of sediment infill (Golfo de Penas‐Taitao basin, GTB), (2) disruption of the region by a series of faults with both normal and strike slip movements, and (3) localization of silicic, near‐trench volcanism and epizonal plutonism and related hydrothermal activity. The northern portion of the GTB began to subside in the Late Miocene (possibly earlier), and has subsequently been deformed, uplifted, and exposed. Gravity and seismic reflection data suggest that the basin continues offshore where it is still actively subsiding today (Golfo de Penas). Subsidence and uplift have thus occurred diachronously in the region, although it is unclear when subsidence began in the Golfo de Penas. Tectonic disruption of the region is likely related to the Liquiñe‐Ofqui fault (LOF), a major, NS‐trending, crustal shear zone that curves westward and terminates in the Golfo de Penas. The LOF has both down‐to‐the‐west and right lateral offset and separates the main Andean Cordillera on the east from a large crustal block (the Chiloe block) on the west. We hypothesize that the GTB has developed as a pull‐apart basin in response to northward movement of the Chiloe block along the LOF. We propose a dynamic model whereby a stress gradient that decreases longitudinally away from the Chile Rise/Peru‐Chile Trench intersection is set up because the youngest, most buoyant, oceanic lithosphere is being subducted at the triple junction. The Chile Rise is viewed as a type of indenter which is acting to drive the Chiloe block northward in front of the northward‐migrating triple junction. This model explains the unique set of geologic features found in the region, and suggests that ridge‐trench interactions may be an important factor in orogenesis at active continental margins.

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Observations indicate that a Martian analog to the Earth's salt pans and saline lakes of arid regions may have existed in crater‐basins during Mars' early (Noachian) epoch. Terraced and channelized crater‐basins point to ponding of surface water as well as possible prolonged and evolving base levels. In addition, supportive (evaporite basin) analogs are offered for three other morphologic features of Martian crater‐basins. An evaporite basin model for crater‐basins on Mars has major implications for the mechanical, chemical, and even biological processes that potentially have operated in Mars' past, and represent a spectrum of potential mineral resources.

Paleomagnetic results have been obtained from a suite of Paleozoic samples from Sierra de Almeida within the high eastern portions of the Atacama desert. Characteristic directions are discussed for two sequences of pre‐Silurian lavas of probable Cambro‐Ordovician age, the Late Cambrian Choscas pluton, three Late Ordovician‐Early Silurian plutons, the Devonian‐Carboniferous Lila Formation and late Paleozoic volcanic units of the Pular and Cas Formations. The Choschas pluton and one lava series yield similar northerly and shallow directions which for the presence of reversals and their concordance are suggested to represent early Paleozoic Arequipa plate directions. Directions in the three Late Ordovician‐Early Silurian plutons pass a tilt test using an overlying erosional unconformity, and these also include reversals. Together with directions from a second lava series (a roof pendant in an Early Silurian pluton) these define poles compatible with Silurian Gondwana results from Africa and Australia. In situ directions from the basal red beds of the Devonian Lila Formation are inconsistent with Devonian Gondwana or stable South American Poles, but (like the Devonian strata of the Appalachians) they are consistent with a tilt‐corrected overprint of Kiaman Superchron age. These results, together with previous results from the late Paleozoic Cas and Pular Formations are discordant from the Gondwana path only for the latest Cambrian‐earliest Ordovician. The discordance in paleomagnetic data, together with regional geologic constraints, can be explained by a model in which the Arequipa block, representing a paraautothonous finger of Gondwana (like Japan or the Iberian Peninsula) rotated about a nearby pole but was then resutured during the Silurian. Such a scenario resolves much of the discrepancies in the models which have emerged from Peru, Chile, and Argentina.

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