Abstract: Quantified Cenozoic Evolution of the Middle Magdalena Basin (Colombia): Ages, Paleogeography, Tectonics

The goal of this project is to analyze the causal relationships between Cenozoic histories of subsidence and sedimentation in the basin, evolution of the flanking ranges, and mechanical properties of the crust. Work to date permits me to interpret that the Middle Magdalena region was a Paleogene broken or composite foreland basin, with multiple source areas, whose subsidence was influenced by deformation of the Eastern Cordillera much earlier than previously thought. Locations of Cenozoic depocenters were determined by the interplay between Cenozoic tectonic loading and a spatially variable flexural response that was inherited from Mesozoic extension. This study will synthesize several data sets and methods: new chronological and field information; structural and stratigraphic interpretations based on seismic and well data; uplift and burial histories derived from a combination of stratigraphic thickness and age data with thermochronological studies of detrital zircon- and apatite-fission tracks and vitrinite reflectance analyses; and numerical modeling to evaluate transition from hot extensional to colder compressive regimes, and flexural variations due to spatial and temporal changes in tectonic loading and isostatic compensation.

This work will facilitate hydrocarbon exploration by providing quantitative correlation tools and knowledge about the distribution of Cenozoic reservoir facies, as well as thermal, maturation, migration and trapping histories. The quantified paleogeographic history of this region will also provide clues to Andean evolution in response to plate margin interactions.  

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90940©1997 AAPG Foundation Grants-in-Aid