Print this pageSequence Stratigraphyof Canon Del Tule Formation, Parras-La Popa Foreland Basin, Northeast Mexico
HALIK, NANANG, KRISTIAN SOEGAARD, HONGZHUAN YE, and ANGELA DANIELS
Stratigraphic architecture of the Maastrichtian Canon del Tule Formation in the lower Difunta Group of the Parras-La Popa-South Sabinas foreland basin is the resu1t of differential flexural subsidence and axial sediment dispersal toward the east. Axial sediment transport for the Difunta Group differs from that in the Cretaceous interior foreland basin of the western United States of America and consequently the stratigraphic architecture varies between the two basins.
The Canon del Tule Formation is asymmetric in geometry with a thickness of 410 m to the north in the South Sabinss Basin, thickening to more than 1325 m in the south in the Parras Basin adjacent to the frontal zone of the Sierra Madre Oriental. The formation consists of two shallow-marine shoreface sandstone sequences each overlain by thick deeper-water mudstone units. The lower shoreface sequence overlies highstand fluvial deposits of the Cerro Huerta Formation and signals the onset of a marine transgression. The transgression culminated in drowning of the basin leading to deposition of a mudstone-dominated turbidite succession of more than 350 m in the south. These deep water deposits thin northwards and ultimately give way laterally to shallow-water sediments. The magnitude and asymmetry of the deepening event across the basin is interpreted as tectonic and not eustatic in origin. Following this tectonic subsidence even sedimentation rates once again caught up with relative rise in sea-level and the seconc highstand sequence of shoreface deposits prograded across the basin. In the southern part of the basin, where sediment accommodation space was greater, the transition upward into the highstand sequence is gradational and consists of stacked upward-thickening parasequences. In the northern part of the foredeep, where sediment accommodation space was less, deep-water sediments are lacking and depositional units are characterized by stacked, sharp-based upper shoreface sandstone deposited during successive forced regressions. The existence of thick amalgamated sandstone units in the in the distal parts of the Parras-La Popa-South Sabinas basin is possible since sands were not required to traverse the foredeep trough due to axial sediment transport.