Reply to the comment by R. A. Astini and F. M. Dávila on “The West Andean Thrust, the San Ramón Fault, and the seismic hazard for Santiago, Chile”

Abstract : We have proposed earlier a new tectonic model for the evolution of the Andes mountain belt as a bivergent orogen. Here, to reply to a comment by Astini and Dávila [2010], we discuss briefly the protracted diachronic evolution (over tens of million years) by propagating deformation at the largescale (over 102–103 km), its influence on basin formation in the back‐arc region (retroarc foreland basin), and the mechanical implications of the bivergence in the tectonics of the fore‐arc region, particularly the possible effects of the underthrusting of the coastal crustal‐scale rigid block (the Marginal Block) beneath the West Andean Thrust