--> Abstract: Colombia-Venezuela-Trinidad Oil Province: Revised Triassic-Recent Depotectonic History, by Roger Higgs; #90078 (2008)

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Colombia-Venezuela-Trinidad Oil Province: Revised Triassic-Recent Depotectonic History

Roger Higgs
Geoclastica Ltd, Marlborough, United Kingdom

The conventional "Caribbean Oblique Collision Model" invokes a 3-stage evolution for northern S America: (1) Jurassic rifting (Pangea breakup); (2) Oxfordian to Cenozoic passive margin beside the spreading Proto-Caribbean Ocean; and (3) Caribbean Arc oblique collision from the W, driving a diachronous (Campanian to Miocene), landward-verging thrust belt and foreland basin. In fact, rifting lasted far longer, as shown by syn-tectonic features in the Neocomian-Coniacian section, including Luna-Querecual-Naparima Hill anoxic deposition for longer (10-15 m.y., Cenomanian-Coniacian) and faster (100-200 m/m.y. decompacted) than can occur on passive margins. Rifting reflects two hemiglobal superplume events (Late Triassic-E Jurassic; intra-Cretaceous), the first tied to Pangea breakup and the second to Caribbean Plateau eruption. Subsequent Proto-Caribbean spreading was brief (5-10 m.y.; Santonian-Campanian), followed by slow, amagmatic subduction under Venezuela and Trinidad from latest Campanian time (72 Ma, chron 32), driven by inter-Americas convergence shown by published Atlantic kinematics. Convergence changed from WSW to SSE in the Paleocene (chron 25), causing oblique subduction under Colombia too. The longer-lived and less oblique subduction in Venezuela-Trinidad drove two continental-margin upper crustal nappes landward, causing Paleogene low-grade metamorphism of overridden Inner Nappe rift deposits (modern coastal ranges), and feeding Campanian-Miocene olistostromes S into a Proto-Caribbean flysch trough. The Caribbean Arc, migrating E as far as "Guajira corner" (72-35 Ma) then SE (35-2.5 Ma), obliquely obducted a forearc nappe in Colombia (Amaime-Ruma) and in C Venezuela-Trinidad (Cura-Rinconada-Tobago), driving a Caribbean foreland basin that diachronously superceded the Proto-Caribbean one. Relative motion then reverted to E (see companion abstracts).

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90078©2008 AAPG Annual Convention, San Antonio, Texas