Caribbean Basin Framework, 4: Maracaibo Basin, Northwestern Venezuela

The Maracaibo basin is presently located in a topographic depression on the Maracaibo block, a triangular, fault-bounded block within the Caribbean-South America plate boundary of northwestern Venezuela. Intense oil exploration over the last 50 years has produced a large amount of seismic and well data that can be used to constrain four Jurassic to Recent tectonic and depositional events that affected the region: (1). Late Jurassic rift phase and subsidence along normal faults striking north-northeast across the floor of the basin; (2) Cretaceous to early Eocene subsidence recorded by shallow to deep marine carbonate and clastic rocks that thicken from south to north and completely cover Permian rocks of the Merida arch; (3) Eocene folding, thrusting, and initial reactivation of Jurassic normal faults as convergent strike-slip and reverse faults. Eocene clastic sediments are thickest in a narrow northwest-trending foredeep on the northeastern margin of the basin; (4) Late Miocene to Recent northwest-southeast convergence is marked by continued reactivation of Jurassic normal faults as reverse and left-lateral strike-slip faults, uplift of mountain ranges bordering the basin, and deposition of up to 10 km of clastic sediment.