GeoAcatlán: Acatlán Complex, 50th anniversary of the beginning of modern geological research

Abstract

The GeoAcatlán Symposium was conceived and organized to commemorate five decades of advances in the understanding of the pre-Mesozoic basement of Mexico. Research on this symposium was comprehensively addressed under the inspiration and expert guidance of Dr. Nicholas Rast, Visiting Professor of the Royal Society of England, to whom we pay profound tribute for the impetus he gave to this aspect of Mexican geology, after Plate Tectonics assigned it a central role in the reconstruction of the west-central part of the supercontinent Pangaea. In this context, the Acatlán Complex became a cornerstone with the discovery, for the first time in Mexico, of eclogites, rocks indicative of ancient subduction zones exposed at the surface. This led to the region's international projection over the following decades, with the arrival of a host of researchers, as well as Mexican and foreign students, who transformed the then-current ideas about the origin and tectonic evolution of the Complex, thus giving the Acatlán Complex its current extraordinary identity.