Lithofacies, Depositional Environments, and Sequence Stratigraphy of the Pennsylvanian (Morrowan-Atokan) Marble Falls Formation, Central Texas
Stephanie Grace Wood
The University of Texas at Austin, Jackson School of Geosciences, Bureau of Economic Geology,
Austin, Texas, United States of America
[email protected] or
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The Pennsylvanian Marble Falls Formation in the Llano Uplift region of the southern Fort Worth Basin (Central Texas) is a Morrowan-Atokan mixed carbonate-siliciclastic unit whose deposition was influenced by icehouse glacioeustatic sea-level fluctuations and foreland basin tectonics. Previous interpretations of the Marble Falls Formation focused on outcrop data at the fringes of the Llano Uplift. This study uses a series of 21 cores to create a facies architectural model, depositional environmental interpretation, and regional sequence stratigraphic framework. The study area is interpreted to have been deposited in a ramp setting with a shallower water upper ramp area to the south and a deeper water basin setting to the north. Analysis of cores and thin sections identified 14 inner ramp to basin facies. Dominant facies are: (1) burrowed sponge spicule packstone, (2) algal grain-dominated packstone to grainstone, (3) skeletal foraminiferal wackestone, and (4) argillaceous mudstone to clay shale.
Facies stacking patterns show that the Marble Falls section was deposited during Pennsylvanian icehouse times in an area part of the Fort Worth Basin with active horst and graben structures developing in response to the Ouachita Orogeny. The resulting depositional cycles reflect high-frequency sea-level fluctuations and are divided into three sequences. These findings contribute to our understanding of the depositional response to glacioeustatic sea-level changes during the Pennsylvanian and can also form the basis for constructing a sedimentological and facies analog for Morrowan to Atokan shallow- to deepwater carbonates in the Permian Basin and the northern Fort Worth Basin.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90183©2013 AAPG Foundation 2013 Grants-in-Aid Projects