The North-South elongated Magallanes Basin situated in Southern Chile was active from the Early Cretaceous to the middle Tertiary in a foreland setting, and contains more than 5000 meters of deep-water siliciclastic deposition, subdivided into Punta Barrosa (Lower-Upper Cretaceous), Cerro Toro (Upper Cretaceous), and Tres pasos (Upper Cretaceous-Tertiary) Formations. Around the beginning of the 21st century industry and academic research groups started working there, raising questions about the interpretation of channel-fills and associated thin beds, and also of mass flow deposits within channel fills.
The focus of our current research is on the Lago Sofia Member (conglomerates) and adjacent thin-bedded turbidites (TBTs) of the Cerro Toro Formation within the Silla Syncline area, in the Torres del Paine National Park. Ongoing work includes detailed mapping and logging of sheet architecture of sand bodies within the channel belt, and modelling of reservoir architecture, and flow simulations.