Based on surface geology, seismic, well and gravity data, the structure of the Cordillera Oriental between Villavicencio and Armero is interpreted as a Cretaceous inverted basin with a double fold and thrust belt system dipping to the center of the cordillera with 150 km of Late Miocene to Recent shortening. Shortening from the Panama collision zone is transmitted to the western and central part of the cordillera by upper crustal detachments and to the eastern flank by a lower crustal detachment. Upper crustal detachments in the Lower and Upper Cretaceous sections ramp up into fault-bend folding and minor fault propagation folding systems.

Potential field data suggest that the depth to the top of the pre-Cretaceous basement is 9 to 10 km beneath the Sabana de Bogota area. Tectonostratigraphic cycles recorded in the Cordillera Oriental were deposited in a series of different tectonic basin settings which can be grouped into: Cambro-Ordovician margin sag setting; an Upper Paleozoic continental wrench setting; a Triassic to Lower Jurassic back arc basin rift setting, and a Early Cretaceous to Quaternary transpressive setting.