While rifting was occurring in the southern portion of Gondwana, the margin further west (along the proto-Andean belt) was experiencing a compressional regime that introduced several allochthonous terranes to the western margin of South America[REF].
Following the early Cambrian rifting event, Antarctica underwent a deformational event resulting in uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains in the mid-Cambrian, an event that has been ascribed to the Ross orogeny (Rapela et al., 2003).