The Espíritu Santo Fault is one of the more prominent
Cenozoic faults in the northern
Central Ranges of the
Colombian
Andes. The fault extends from the
Sabanalarga Fault near the town of
Liborina in the southwest, as far northeast as the town of
Cáceres in the
Bajo Cauca area. There, it disappears under young sediment of the
Cauca and
Nechí River valleys. It has a reverse sense in the northern part and normal sense in the southern part. The Espíritu Santo Fault places
Precambrian metamorphic rocks to the south against
Paleozoic metamorphic rocks to the north. The fault displaces rocks of the
Puquí Complex,
Valdivia Group, and
mafic and
ultramafic rocks and sediments of the Bajo Cauca. The fault forms well developed fault lines and valleys. The fault trace is marked by young morphologic features such as ground ruptures, saddles, shutter ridges, closed depressions, aligned and captured drainages and linear
scarps on recent sediment. There is clear offset of 50-100 thousand year old terraces and
Quaternary deposits around El Doce. In addition, the fault has displaced a Tertiary erosion surface. The last activity of the fault has been estimated at 500 years ago. The fault displays dextral (right-lateral) movement in ramps, displacing older deformational structures and forming an intense
cataclasis. Rotated foliations are observed in a northeasterly direction, overprinting older foliations of a north-northwest trend. == See also ==