--> Abstract: Quartz-rich Post-Eocene Reservoirs in the North Panama Deformed Belt and Pacific Basins: The Early Exhumation of the Panama Arc, by Montes, Camilo<sup>1</sup>; Cardona, Agustin; and Bayona, German; #90166 (2013)

Datapages, Inc.Print this page

Quartz-rich Post-Eocene Reservoirs in the North Panama Deformed Belt and Pacific Basins: The Early Exhumation of the Panama Arc

Montes, Camilo1; Cardona, Agustin; and Bayona, German
[email protected]

New field and analytical data from the Panama arc predict the presence of post-Eocene quartz-rich petroleum reservoirs in the North Panama Deformed Belt and the Pacific basins of Panama and western Colombia. Thermochronological, provenance, and field data collected along the Panama arc indicate that large granitoid bodies have experienced exhumation-related cooling and erosion since middle Eocene times. Cooling revealed by thermochronological analyses, fission-track and U/Th/He in apatite and zircons from the granitoid bodies, was confirmed to be exhumation-related cooling by the presence of a non-conformity that separates Eocene quartz-rich fluvial deposits and shallow-carbonate sequences from quartz-dioritic and granodioritic plutonic bodies. Unroofing and erosion of the felsic roots of the Panama arc root was additionally constrained to have been continuous throughout early and middle Miocene times, as immature sandstone from strata of those ages contain first-cycle, zircon populations that mimic the age distributions present in the Panama arc. Exhumation of the Panama arc took place as northest-trending, left-lateral strike-slip deformation segmented and shut off the arc, with a magmatic gap between 38 and 25 Ma. Exhumation took place as left-lateral motion of the eastern portion of the Panama arc caused oroclinal deformation and thrust northward the arc over the Caribbean Plate, forcing incipient subduction of the Caribbean Plate under the Panama arc. Timing of deformation can be calculated by the depth of penetration and current convergence rate. Using these two constraints, convergence started 15 to 20 million years ago, coincident with the main period of oroclinal deformation.

 

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