Monte Desert Monte Desert The Monte Desert is a South American ecoregion, lying entirely within Argentina and covering approximately the submontane areas of Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza Provinces, plus the western half of La Pampa Province and the extreme north of Río Negro Province. The desert lies southeast of the Atacama Desert in Chile, north of the larger Patagonian Desert, east of the Andes and west of the Sierra de Córdoba. The delineations between the Monte Desert, the Atacama Desert, and the Patagonian Desert are not exact and the desert seems to be more-or-less continuous with the
North Patagonian Massif North Patagonian Massif The North Patagonian Massif or Somún Cura Massif (Spanish: "Macizo Norpatagónico", "Macizo Nordpatagónico" or "Macizo de Somún Cura") is a massif in northern Patagonia located in the Argentine provinces of Río Negro and Chubut. The massif is a plateau surrounded by sedimentary basins. The North Patagonian Massif covers an area of approximately . The massif rises above the surrounding topography reaching a maximum of above sea level. Compared to neighboring areas, the North Patagonian Massif has thicker continental crust. The massif consists of a basement formed by Cambro-Ordovician rocks, overlain by the Middle Silurian Sierra Grande Formation.