Depositional Systems of the Continental Margin of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico West of Peninsular Florida: A Possible Modern Analog to Some Depositional Models for the Permian Delaware Basin

ABSTRACT Facies relationships and the Jacka and Thompson (1979) interpretation of the Permian Delaware Basin margin to glacially induced sea-level fluctuations provide a scaled-down model which is useful in coming to understand their Pleistocene - Recent analogs on the massive West Florida continental margin. Both have a high sea-level stand system which consists of a near shore band of clastics grading into a skeletal carbonate facies and a reefal barrier on the outer aspect of the shelf. Beyond the reef lies a band of reef talus, a carbonate slope and base of slope deposits which include mass wasting debris and carbonate turbidites. The low sea-level model of the Delaware Basin margin, along with reconnaissance seismic and surfacial sediment data from the West Florida margin provide a basis for a hypothesis for low sea-level stands for the latter in which drainage would be rejuvenated across the shelf. The clastic bank would be extended perhaps resulting in channelized delivery of clastics to the otherwise dominantly carbonate slope and base of slope deposits. Parallels between the two systems are, of course, not exact and care must be taken not to go too far with the analogy. However, as we learn more about the sedimentology of the West Florida margin, we may be able to take the comparison further and perhaps to reverse the flow, providing some insight into the interpretive problems remaining to be solved in the Delaware Basin margin.