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Early and middle Miocene depositional history of the Maracaibo Basin, western Venezuela

¹ C&C Reservoirs, Inc., 10333 Harwin Drive, Suite 550, Houston, Texas 77036; jose.guzman{at}ccreservoirs.com
² John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78713-8902

José I. Guzmán is a senior research geoscientist with C&C Reservoirs, Inc., in Houston. He obtained degrees in geology from the University of Colorado at Boulder (B.A., 1980), the Universidad Central de Venezuela (M.Sc., 1995), and the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D., 1999). He has more than 25 years of experience in clastic stratigraphy, depositional system analysis, and reservoir geology in Venezuela, west Texas, and Mexico.

William L. Fisher is the inaugural dean and previously the first director of the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also professor of geological sciences, holds the Barrow Chair of Mineral Resources, and directs the Geology Foundation. He is a former director of the Bureau of Economic Geology and a former chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences.

The uplift of the Sierra de Perijá and Mérida Andes and the marine connection with the Falcón Basin ultimately controlled the distribution of shallow-marine, coastal, and nonmarine sedimentary rocks in the Maracaibo Basin during the early and middle Miocene. These rocks contain the most important shale top seal in the basin and nearly three-quarters of the produced plus proven reserves of the supergiant Bolívar coastal fields.

The Maracaibo Basin has been isolated from extrabasinal drainage systems since the late Oligocene, and sediments derived from the surrounding highlands were either deposited in the basin or delivered into the neighboring Falcón Basin through a narrow marine passage (the westward extension of the Falcón Channel). Four unconformity-bounded sequences mapped in the northeastern sector of the Maracaibo Basin help recreate its regional paleogeography as it was flooded from the northeast through this passage. In the early Miocene, part of the basin became a semi-enclosed shallow-marine gulf, and wave- and tide-modified deltas prograded across the temporarily inactive Lama-Icotea fault system. As sea level dropped, the shoreline advanced eastward of the Falcón Channel, and valleys were incised and subsequently filled by transgressive estuarine sediments. In the next sea level highstand, tidal-bar complexes of a tide-dominated delta system prograded and filled all available accommodation space. In the middle Miocene, relative sea level dropped into the Falcón Basin, and the Maracaibo area became a mixed-load fluvial drainage basin. By late middle Miocene, the two basins were separated, and the Maracaibo Basin became an intermontane fluvial-lacustrine depression.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P. Mann, A. Escalona, and M. V. Castillo Regional geologic and tectonic setting of the Maracaibo supergiant basin, western Venezuela AAPG Bulletin, April 1, 2006; 90(4): 445 - 477. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Escalona and P. Mann An overview of the petroleum system of Maracaibo Basin AAPG Bulletin, April 1, 2006; 90(4): 657 - 678. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]