Wawrzyniec, Tim F.¹, Tucker Hentz², Michael De Angelo², Antonio Cuevas³, J. Javier Hernández Mendoza⁴, Luis A. Sanchez-Barreda² 
(1) University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
(2) Bureau of Economic Geology, Austin, TX
(3) Pemex Exploración y Producción, Poza Rica, Mexico 
(4) Pemex Exploración y Producción, Reynosa, Mexico

ABSTRACT: Termination of the Offshore Northern Gulf of Mexico Structural Style, Burgos Basin, Mexico

Recent work within the Texas offshore, northeast of the Burgos Basin, demonstrated that structural style at this latitude is dominated by the complex interplay of salt and shale accommodation. Related offshore listric faults form two trends—the Corsair and Wanda growth-fault systems—that trend parallel to the Texas Gulf coast, but within the Burgos Basin they converge toward the modern coastline. South of the Burgos Basin, the Laguna Madre-Tuxpan shelf has a structural style that is dominated by the persistence of a single growth system known as the Faja de Oro fault. This fault extends from the Tuxpan Platform to the Burgos Basin and trends north-northwest (subparallel to the modern coast) but diverges basinward within the Burgos Basin. Slip on the Faja de Oro initiated in the early Miocene with full integration of multiple segments into a single fault by the early Pliocene. As part of a joint study between the Bureau of Economic Geology and PEMEX Exploracción y Produccion to develop a detailed geologic framework of the Burgos Basin, analysis revealed that these two structural styles merge within the Burgos Basin. Termination of these trends represents a drastic shift between a structural style dominated by the response of mobile material to an applied depositional load and a style dominated by either external forcing of intrabasinal deformation or a dynamic equilibrium between sedimentation and regional gravitational collapse. Observed contrasting styles appear to result directly from relative sedimentation rates, effects of Laramide-age crustal scale flexure, and underlying Mesozoic structural framework.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90026©2004 AAPG Annual Meeting, Dallas, Texas, April 18-21, 2004.