Tertiary Progressive Folding and Faulting Systems on Evaporite Terrains at the Oil Province of Southern Mexico

Abstract Structural mapping from 3D seismic at southern Mexico confirm that there are NW-SE trend of discontinuous faulted-folds from a regional fold belt formed by Mesozoic carbonates and evaporates, and Cenozoic clastics. Tectonic folding is the main deformation developed in two phases progressively during late Eocene to early Miocene and middle Miocene to late Pliocene, based on age of syn-kinematic units. Lateral faulting possibly associated to deeper contraction through old-basement faults displaces fold axes between 1 and 8 km. Some folds related to lateral fault present salt out of the core emplaced along the plane. Halokinesis formed salt withdrawal structures as crestal graben at anticlines cores or transtensional grabens related to lateral faults and cannopies over the Dorado squeezed anticline. Heterogeneity and anisopachity of Jurassic evaporites that have 1–3 km of thickness approximately caused folding detachment surfaces. Salt cored folds have detachment within the evaporites but some folds are detached in the top of evaporites. An example of detailed map from seismic structural-attribute was integrated with normalized production from productive wells in a cretaceous reservoir anticline. Productive wells are close to major faulted zones which are outstanding undrilled areas with high probability to recover remnant hydrocarbons in associated fractures swarms to deformation corridors of faults.