Carlos Giraldo¹, Eduardo Alvarez¹, Marco Odehnal¹, Grover González¹, Vincenzo De Lisa¹, Gustavo Hernandez¹
(1) PDVSA E&P, Caracas, Venezuela

Abstract: New insight into the Mud Diapirs Exploration in the Eastern Venezuela Basin

The mud diapir tract and its related structures occupies an WSW - ENE trending belt that stretches from Musipan, west of Maturin, to Pedernales in the Orinoco delta. These features, two hundred kilometers long and ten wide, have also been reported in offshore and onshore Trinidad with various degrees of activity that range from mud emanations to mud volcanos, which occasionally rise above sea level. Also associated to this diapir band a number of oil and gas seeps as well as asphalt lakes have been discovered. The band of diapiric deformation is subparallel and, possibly related to, the Middle Miocene deep thrusts of north Monagas (El Furrial-Tejero). The age of diapirism seems to be restricted to a period from Late Miocene to Recent. The mud source for the diapirs comes from the removilized shales of the Lower Miocene Carapita Formation. A number of maps and transects perpendicular to diapir development evidence their geometry and growth. Because several of these subparallel belts appear to be diachronic, it can be concluded that the age of the diapiric structures gets younger towards the southeast, apparently caused by the deepening of the foredeep and the reactivation of the deep thrusts active during the Plio-Pleistocene.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90914©2000 AAPG Annual Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana