Part 2. Biostratigraphy and Paleoenvironmental Analysis of the Sierra Madre Limestone (Cretaceous), Chiapas
Keywords:
unidades, Santoniano, formación, carbonatada, CretácicoAbstract
The important hydrocarbon reservoir of the prolific Reforma oil-producing area of southern Mexico, the Sierra Madre Limestone (Cretaceous), crops out in Chiapas, where it consists of 2,600 m of platform interior limestones and dolomites.
In the outcrop area the Sierra Madre Limestone consists of 11 lithologic units. The lower 825 m (unit 1) is unfossiliferous beds of dolomite breccia. The upper 2,575 m (units 2–11) includes miliolid and algal-bearing pellet wackestones and packstones containing a diverse benthonic foraminiferal population; coral and gastropod-bearing, sponge spicule wackestones with planktonic foraminifera; rudist-bearing skeletal and pellet wackestones and packstones; laminated lime mudstones; dolomitized mudstones; and ooid-bearing worn skeletal fragment grainstones. In west-central Chiapas the Sierra Madre Limestone conformably overlies the San Ricardo Group of Neocomian age and is unconformably overlain by the Ocozocuautla Formation of Campanian–Maastrichtian age.
Six informal biostratigraphic zones, based mainly on the first and last occurrences of key foraminiferal species, indicate that units 2–11 of the Sierra Madre Limestone range in age from late Albian (or slightly older) to early–middle Santonian in the study area and correlate with the upper two-thirds of the Ixcoy Formation of northwestern Guatemala and the upper two-thirds of the Cobán Formation and the lower part of the Campur Formation of southeastern Guatemala.
Six biofacies are defined in the Sierra Madre Limestone on the basis of fossil occurrences and relative abundance. The environments of deposition indicated by these biofacies include a highly restricted marine lagoon and platform evaporitic environment, a restricted to open inner shelf and intertidal environment, a high-energy shoal or middle shelf bank environment, and an open, low-energy middle shelf environment.
Most of the Sierra Madre Limestone in west-central Chiapas was deposited in low-energy, inner shelf water at depths of 10 m or less, although intervals of high-energy deposition and three deeper water zones are present.
The Sierra Madre Limestone includes three marine sedimentary cycles recorded by platform interior sediments. Each cycle was of approximately 5–10 Ma duration and began with deepening of the water and ended with shallowing of the water. The cycles probably resulted from the interrelationship of local carbonate production levels, local and regional tectonics, and local and worldwide sea-level fluctuations.
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