Review of the stratigraphy, age and structure of the Chicomuselo Fold Belt (CFB)

Abstract

The Chicomuselo Fold Belt (CFB) is a little known large scale orogen distributed along a thin fringe between southern Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. It is distributed on the southern edge of the Maya tectonostratigraphic terrane and is constituted by a succession of sedimentary and metasedimentary folded Paleozoic rocks, which include the Santa Rosa Inferior, Santa Rosa Superior, Grupera and Paso Hondo formations, which consist of layers of black phyllite and metapsamites, slate and fine-grain sandstone layers, alternating shale and fine-grained sandstone interlayered with limestone layers, as well as limestone and dolomite in massive strata, respectively. Based on the fossil content of the Santa Rosa Inferior and Paso Hondo formations, Hernández-García (1973) assigned a Mississippian and Late-Wolfcampian (Early Permian) age to these units, correspondingly. These sequences are folded and highly foliated, and are discordantly covered by red beds of the Jurassic Todos Santos Formation. No other angular unconformity was found among the units that constitutes the CFB as reported in literature. Based on these stratigraphic relations, it is considered that the deformation of the Chicomuselo Belt may have occurred between the Late Permian and the Early Jurassic.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90369 © 2020 AAPG Hedberg Conference, Geology and Hydrocarbon Potential of the Circum-Gulf of Mexico Pre-salt Section, Mexico City, Mexico, February 4-6, 2020