The Maastrichtian-Cenozoic age Upper Magdalena Valley Basin has evolved through time from an area of extensional rifting, to a foreland basin, and finally to an inter-Andean basin. This has occurred through a complex interaction of regional tectonic forces that are recorded within the deformation, exhumation, and sedimentation of the basin. To analyze the evolution of the basin, palinspastic retrodeformation techniques on volume-balanced 2D-seismic profiles were used. From these interpretations, an understanding of the basin was achieved through the creation of retrodeformed maps.

The retrodeformational maps show the configuration and orientation of faults, stratigraphic units present at the surface, and locations of major structural features during the Late Oligocene, mid-Eocene, and Pre-Cretaceous. The Late Oligocene and mid-Eocene maps are based on mapped angular unconformity surfaces from the cross-sections. The configuration of the extensional rift basins, prior to compression, is shown on the Pre-Cretaceous retrodeformational map. An unconformity in the Late Oligocene was formed during the collision of the Panama- Choco arc with the northwestern margin of South America that caused the transference of compressional stress inland. The result of which was the inversion of the pre-Magdalena- Llanos Basin to form the Eastern Cordillera. The formation of the mid-Eocene unconformity is related to the change in Caribbean-South American relative plate motion from NE-SW strike slip to EW transpression. The coincident effect of this was the climax of the pre-Andean orogeny which exposed the UMV to erosion. The Pre-Cretaceous Retrodeformational Map was created through a combination of cross-sections, gravity, magnetic, well, and surface data and shows the probable extent and orientation of the mid-Jurassic extensional rift basins that were created during the separation of North and South America.

Two general inferences on the nature of regional deformation have been made from this work: 1) Changes in the style of deformation are coincident with arc-continent collisions and changes in the obliquity of convergence at the margin. Periods of ongoing ocean-continent collisions are not coincident to changes in the style and rate of deformation within the basin. 2) The location and orientation of the margins of the basin during the extensional phase are determined by the trend of the regional structural buttresses. Throughout compression of the basin the boundary controlled by the continental shield remains fixed and the opposite boundary rotates and shifts in response to the movement of the continental arc.