Variscan orogeny rifted off the north Gondwana margin in early Ordovician. By the end of the Silurian and in Early Devonian times, Baltica and Laurentia drifted towards each other, closing the Iapetus Ocean between them. They collided in the Caledonian orogeny and formed the Caledonide mountains of North America, Greenland, the British Isles and Norway. Seafloor spreading to the south of Avalonia pushed the latter into north Laurentia and thrust up the northern Appalachian Mountains in the acadian phase of the Caledonian orogeny. Contemporaneously the Tornquist Sea between Avalonia and Baltica was entirely closed. Thus Avalonia formed the southern coast of the
San Rafael orogeny the San Rafael orogeny. San Rafael orogeny The San Rafael orogeny was an orogeny that affected parts of western Argentina and Chile during the Late Paleozoic. The resulting orogenic belt has a NW-NNW curved form. The San Rafael orogeny might have been linked with the roughly contemporary Gondwanide orogeny of eastern Argentina. Parts of the Choiyoi Group sediments were deformed by the San Rafael orogeny. During the Neogene ancient faults related to the San Rafael orogeny conditioned the geometry of the blocks affected by the Andean orogeny. Some of the plutons of the Elqui-Limarí Batholith were emplaced a context of