Abstract The post-obduction formations of Grande Terre, New Caledonia, comprise igneous intrusions, regolith cover, and marine and terrestrial sedimentary rocks. Two restricted Late Oligocene granitoid bodies are intruded into the Peridotite Nappe and its substrate in the south of the island. Thick regolith cover developed over the Peridotite Nappe from the Late Oligocene or earlier. The Népoui Group comprises Late Oligocene–Early Miocene mixed marine carbonate and siliciclastic deposits. It mainly reworks the Peridotite Nappe and its regolith cover. Its development pattern is mainly controlled by tectonic uplift and subsidence. The Gwa N'Doro Formation on the eastern coast and the Fluvio-lacustrine Formation in the south are remnants of the Miocene–Present river network. Offshore, thick Oligocene to Neogene sedimentary successions are imaged by seismic surveys on the margins of Grande Terre, although these successions have not been drilled and remain undated. Several dredges have recovered shallow Miocene sedimentary rocks, indicating substantial Neogene subsidence. Quaternary formations are represented inland by aeolianite, vertisols and calcrete and offshore by the large barrier reef–lagoon complex, the onset of which is dated at c. 400 ka. This chapter discusses the different models proposed for the post-obduction evolution of Grand Terre.

We synthesize geologic observations with new isotopic evidence for the timing and magnitude of uplift for the central Andes between 22°S and 26°S since the Paleocene. To estimate paleoelevations, we used the stable isotopic composition of carbonates and volcanic glass, combined with another paleoelevation indicator for the central Andes: the distribution of evaporites. Paleoelevation reconstruction using clumped isotope paleothermometry failed due to resetting during burial. The Andes at this latitude rose and broadened eastward in three stages during the Cenozoic. The first, in what is broadly termed the “Incaic” orogeny, ended by the late Eocene, when magmatism and deformation had elevated to ≥4 km the bulk (~50%) of what is now the western and central Andes. The second stage witnessed the gradual building of the easternmost Puna and Eastern Cordillera, starting with deformation as early as 38 Ma, to >3 km by no later than 15 Ma. The proximal portions of the Paleogene foreland basin system were incorporated into the orogenic edifice, and basins internal to the orogen were enclosed and isolated from easterly moisture sources, promoting the precipitation of evaporites. In the third orogenic stage during the Pliocene–Pleistocene, Andean deformation accelerated and stepped eastward to form the modern Subandes, accounting for the final ~15%–20% of the current cross section of the Andes. About 0.5 km of elevation was added unevenly to the Western Cordillera and Puna from 10 to 2 Ma by voluminous volcanism. The two largest episodes of uplift and eastward propagation of the orogenic front and of the foreland flexural wave, ca. 50 (?)–40 Ma and <5 Ma, overlap with or immediately postdate periods of very rapid plate convergence, high flux magmatism in the magmatic arc, and crustal thickening. Uplift does not correlate with a hypothesized mantle lithospheric foundering event in the early Oligocene. Development of hyperaridity in the Atacama Desert by the mid-Miocene postdates the two-step elevation gain to >3 km of most (~75%) of the Andes. Hence, the record suggests that hyperarid climate was a consequence, not major cause, of uplift through trench sediment starvation.