Tectono – Stratigraphic Events of the Northern Caribbean Offshore, Colombia

Mantilla, Oswaldo¹; Castellanos, Jaime A.; Ramirez, Victor; Hurtado, Angel D.; and Rubio, Claudia
¹[email protected]

Colombian Caribbean offshore is located at the boundary between the Caribbean and South American plates, which have a relative movement towards the ESE and WNW, respectively, producing an oblique convergence of this margin and driving the major tectonostratigraphic features of the area. The occurrence of several tectonic events throughout geologic time, have generated different provinces and structural styles turning this area into a geologically complex region. These events also controlled both the distribution and type of plays and the timing of the petroleum systems in the basin; hence their study is the key to understand the tectonic evolution of the Colombian Caribbean offshore, aiming to reduce the exploratory risk in this basin. Taking this into account, the goal of this work was to perform a tectono-stratigraphic analysis in the offshore Guajira using 2D and 3D seismic data, biostratigraphy, sedimentology and well logs. Six tectono-sequences from the Mesozoic to the Pliocene separated by five major unconformities were recognized. Some of these were previously documented by other authors (Guajira, Falcon and Maracaibo Basin), evidencing the regional tectonic control on depositional and structural trends of the interpreted sequences. These sequences reflect the next regional events: (1) Rift Jurassic - Early Cretaceous (opening of the proto-Caribbean); (2) Sedimentary deposition within a passive margin environment during the Late Cretaceous; (3) Interaction of Caribbean and South American plates in the Colombian Caribbean during the late Cretaceous - Paleocene with accretion of oceanic lands; (4) Late Eocene deformation event - early Oligocene (Guajiro Orogeny and Guarao); (5) Eustatic changes that generated a paraconformity of strata during the late Oligocene - early Miocene; and (6) deformation event during the late Miocene – Pliocene.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90166©2013 AAPG International Conference & Exhibition, Cartagena, Colombia, 8-11 September 2013