ABSTRACT: Development of Caribbean Plate Tectonics: A Contribution from Oil Exploration in Venezuela

J. Fuentes, S. Oum, R. Lander

Following several huge oil and gas discoveries during the mid-1980s in the Northern Venezuela overthrust belt, more detailed geological and geophysical studies have increased our perception of structural control on sedimentary basin development.

Significant improvements in seismic data quality and seismic lines positioned close to outcrops of the frontal thrust give evidence of Miocene to Pleistocene thin-skinned tectonics as the mechanism of the formation of the overthrust belt of the Serrania del Interior.

We conclude that the thrust sheet was formed by the effects of major right-lateral transcurrent movements along the El Pilar fault system, which forced metasediments against thick Miocene clastics in pull-apart basins. These basins were created earlier by strike-slip motions of preexisting parallel en-echelon normal faults.

The eastwardly mobile Caribbean plate boundary and its evolution from a collision to a transpression zone is documented and a new approach to an evaluation of oil and gas potential is made of multiple reservoirs in stacked, folded thrust sheets.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990