Middle Eocene flysch/wildflysch, unconformity and ovelying shallow marine carbonate rocks

Abstract

Literature reports upper Cretaceous to Middle Eocene flysch/wildflysch deposits from Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Granada, Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Early papers recording their widespread distribution and noting their (violent) tectonic implications are often overlooked by later palaeogeographic and plate tectonic reconstructions of the Caribbean area. Where allochthonous material is abundant andautochthonous matrix scarce or lacking in fossils, the units may receive erroneously older ages and/or large age ranges. Removal of reworked material results in a shortened age interval that converges to the upper limit. Units that have not received recent stratigraphic study should be revisited. The material came from nappes that in some areas overlie the deposits. Allochthons in Cuba and Venezuela are hundreds of kilometres long and tens of kilometres wide and thick. They record a regional, violent and unexplained event. They are followed by a regional, Middle Eocene unconformity overlain by shallow water carbonate rocks.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90330©2018 AAPG Hedberg: Geology of Middle America – the Gulf of Mexico, Yucatan, Caribbean, Grenada and Tobago Basins and Their Margins “Integration of the geology of the area from the southern onshore of North America to the northern onshore of South America”, Siguenza, Guadalajara, Spain, July 2-5, 2018