Datapages, Inc.Print this page

ABSTRACT: Late Quaternary Coastal Units and Marine Cycles: Correlations Between Northern Gulf Sectors

OTVOS, ERVIN G., and WADE E. HOWAT, Geology Section, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, Ocean Springs, MS

Late Pleistocene depositional and morphostratigraphic units, designated in Mississippi, were correlated along the north Gulf between Texas and northwest Florida. Subsidence resulted in thick Pleistocene sequences in the north-northwest. Due to steady, inland-centered uplift, only a thin late Pleistocene interval survived erosion on the northeast Gulf. Neogene siliciclastics define the base of the Pleistocene. The open marine-to-paralic Biloxi, alluvial Prairie and Gulfport barrier formations were deposited during the Sangamonian Interglacial. In sharp contrast with the Atlantic south coast, only a single barrier shoreline is recognized. Two sets of paralic deposits, separated by weathering horizon and/or different consolidation state indicate Sangamonian shoreline fluctuations on the exas coast. Evidence contradicts recent suggestions of coastwise surface aggradation and of a warm interval, associated with a major eustatic rise during the middle/late Wisconsinan.

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91014©1992 AAPG GCAGS and GC-SEPM Meeting, Jackson, Mississippi, October 21-23, 1992 (2009)