Sequence Stratigraphy and Stratigraphic Trap Potential of the Villeta Formation (Cretaceous), Putumayo Basin, Colombia

C. Robertson Handford, Chajid Kairuz, Allen Cregg, and Gregory Cleveland

The Villeta Formation, which was deposited in approximately 5 Ma (Cenomanian-Campanian), includes four 3rd-order sequences representing marine shelf, siliciclastic shoreface, and lower coastal-plain environments. Although these environments transgressed landward across the pre-Cretaceous basement during a 2nd-order base-level rise, several brief but important base-level falls and abrupt basinward and downward facies-shifts interrupted this trend. The 3rd-order base-level falls and subsequent transgressions led to the deposition of important hydrocarbon-bearing sandstones in the Villeta Formation.

Sequence boundaries record abrupt downward facies shifts and separate black marine shales and deep-shelf limestones below from fluvial to tidally- and wave-influenced shoreface sandstones above. Each of these sands (Arenisca T, U inferior, U superior, and M2) laps out landward and passes upward into transgressive shales and thin highstand limestones. Base-level rise and retrogradation of the shoreline is indicated by upward thinning of transgressive sandstones and upward increase in marine shale. Sandstones thin or downlap basinward into shales. Transgressive deposits dominate the sequences. Highstand progradation of siliciclastic shorelines was minimal and limited by a relatively high accommodation/sediment-supply ratio. Base-level falls, however, allowed shorelines to advance basinword long distances.

The stratigraphic geometries of the Villeta sandstones, as indicated by seismic data and well-log correlations, indicate that potentially large stratigraphic traps are present in the Putumayo Basin. Stratigraphic entrapment is indicated by landward onlap of the Villeta sandstones, the presence of shales and tight limestones overlying porous sandstones, and known hydrocarbon accumulations in the sandstones over structural highs.

AAPG Search and Discover Article #91019©1996 AAPG Convention and Exhibition 19-22 May 1996, San Diego, California