Pleistocene and Holocene Stratigraphic Studies, Caicos Platform, British West Indies

Christine Iannello¹, Tina Hughes², Aram Derewetzky³, Peter Hillock⁴, Matt Tremblay⁵, Andrew McKerron², R. Scott Parker⁶, Sue Gibbons⁷, and Steven Bachtel^8
1 Innovative Exploration Services, LP, Houston, TX
² Esso Austrailia, Melborne, Australia
³ ExxonMobil Exploration Company, Houston, TX
⁴ ExxonMobil Development Company, Houston, TX
⁵ Ryder Scott Company, Houston, TX
⁶ ExxonMobil Canada, Calgary, AB
⁷ ExxonMobil Production Company, Houston, TX
⁸ ConocoPhillips Company, Houston, TX

The modern carbonate depositional environments on the Caicos Platform are an excellent natural laboratory for training and research. Over the past four years, ExxonMobil has conducted field research to understand the recent evolution of the Caicos Platform in a sequence stratigraphic context. The focus of this study has been to understand the recent evolution, since the last highstand, of the Caicos Platform in a sequence stratigraphic context. An island accretion theory was developed based on LANDSAT images and low-altitude aerial photography, mapped subaereal exposure surfaces, dune morphologies, and U/Th age dates on Providenciales. Lateral facies changes along bedding planes were observed within individual high-frequency sequences on both West Caicos and Provideciales. Lateral facies and grain size changes were also documented in modern environments where sample transects were made across a skeletal shoal and a high-energy shoreface. These lateral facies variations observed in the Pleistocene parasequences in context with the modern transects are instrumental in understanding the architecture and correlation schemes of high-energy carbonate shorelines. This isolated platform evolution, stratigraphic architecture, and lateral facies distributions have been applied to projects within the company, ranging from the platform down to the reservoir characterization scale.