4 Tectonics and Sedimentation, Rio Grande Embayment/Burgos Basin

Monday, 14 March 2022
10:55 AM - 12:30 PM
Online

TECTONIC SETTING OF THE SENO MEXICANO (SOUTH TEXAS AND BURGOS BASIN): EXTENSION, FOLDING, TILTING, GROWTH FAULTING AND SOME SALT

Paper number: 4-2
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 11:00 AM – 11:20 AM

Authors

  • Thomas Ewing Presenting Author
    Frontera Exploration Consultants, San Antonio, TX

Abstract

The broad basin of the Seno Mexicano (South Texas and northeastern Mexico) is built on poorly known, highly extended continental crust related to Jurassic formation of the Gulf of Mexico, at its junction with complex Mexican Cordillera extension and strike-slip. Salt was deposited across the area, although few salt diapirs penetrate the Cenozoic sediments. The area lay in deep water east of the Jurassic and Cretaceous shelf margins, accumulating deep-water limestone, organic deposits, and clay. Laramide (Hidalgoan) folding on NW-SE axes affected the southern part of the basin into Middle Eocene time.

Regional west-up tilting began in Paleocene time, forming the Lobo gravity slide complex and rafting the Mesozoic sediments eastward above Jurassic salt, creating the deep Rosita trough. This trough was then filled by Lower to Middle Eocene shelf-margin clastic sediments expanded across growth faults. Rosita rafting is cognate to a Miocene event (Macuspana) in southeastern Mexico. Later tilting is indicated by the Vicksburg gravity slide (Lower Oligocene), as deltaic margins prograded eastward. Upper Oligocene and Lower Miocene sediments prograded with growth faulting into a second trough, initiating a salt canopy and/or rafting sediments to form the abyssal Perdido fold belt. Strong Miocene tilting placed Goliad (Late Miocene-Pliocene) sediments atop rocks as old as Eocene; later tilting uplifted Goliad sediments to form the high cuesta of the Bordas Escarpment.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 54, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2022SC-373333

© Copyright 2022 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.